Question

Scientists are studying a mangrove community in coastal Florida. They find three species of mangrove trees: red mangroves, black mangroves, and white mangroves. Each species provides food and habitat for a variety of animal species.

a. What is one adaptation of a mangrove tree species that allows it to survive in its environment?

b. Consider a lake ecosystem in northern Minnesota. What are two abiotic factors that would distinguish a mangrove community from this ecosystem?

c. When scientists revisit the mangrove community 10 years later, they find that two of the mangrove tree species have disappeared completely. How is this decrease in biodiversity likely to affect the ecosystem's stability?

Answer 1

a. What is one adaptation of a mangrove tree species that allows it to survive in its environment?

Answer: Two key variations they need are the flexibility to survive in wet and hypoxia (no oxygen) soil, and therefore the ability to tolerate briny waters. Some mangroves take away salt from briny water waters through ultra-filtration in their roots.

Answer 2

The correct answers are

a. The ability to remove salt from water using an ultra-filtration process in their roots.

b. Extreme cold temperature in winter and low humidity conditions.

c. The ecosystem's stability will certainly be affected. Probably having mangroves with an unique color will limit the species that pollinate the trees.

Step-by-step explanation:

In this particularly project, scientists are studying red, black and white mangroves in coastal Florida. For these communities it could be stated that:

a. One adaptation of mangrove tree species that allows to survive in coastal Florida is that they have the ability to remove salt from water using an ultra-filtration process in their roots. This adaptation allow mangrove tree species to grow in coastal zones, such as the one in Florida. Actually, there is a Florida mangroves ecoregion in the coasts of the Florida peninsula and the Florida Keys, which was probably the object of this study.

b. Two abiotic factors that would distinguish a mangrove community in northern Minnesota are: extreme cold temperature in winter and low humidity conditions. The weather conditions of northern Minnesota have limited its agriculture to corn and soybeans. A mangrove community in that zone would need to adapt to the abiotic conditions of the zone.

c. The ecosystem's stability is given by the biodiversity of a region. The disappearance of two of the three mangrove community will certainly affect the ecosystem's stability. Further investigations are needed to study the level of affectation, probably having mangroves with an unique color will limit the species that pollinate the trees.