Study On Mangrove And Its Conservational Strategy Of Leizhou Peninsula, China

Leizhou Peninsula is located in the south most continental end of China with longitude 109°30′ - 110°55′E and latitude 20° 12′- 21°35′N, find with a north tropical oceanic monsoon climate. More than 2 000 species of oceanic biota and 183 species of birds recorded living in its coastal water and wetlands with a total inter tide area 99 100 hm2. Its mangrove wetlands, with an area of 2 0 279 hm2, including 7 305.8 hnTmangrove and 9 609. 7hm~mudflats suitable for mangrove growing, was designated as one of wetlands of international importance by the center government of The People' s Republic of China in January 2002 and is now under the management of The Preparative Office of Zhanjiang National Mangrove Nature Reserve with the joint efforts of The Netherlands.Mangroves are woody plant communities of inter-tide areas of tropical and subtropical coastlines, with particular landscape and abundant biodiversity as well as complex biophysical and ecological processes as their distinguishing characteristics. Mangroves give ecological services in coastal protection, direct use of the forest resources, near-shore fishery and environmental quality maintenance, animal habitats, recreation, education and scientific research and etc. Lots of scientific works on mangroves were published mainly in general ecology, physiology and biochemistry. However, detailed studies of mangrove are lacking in major areas, especially in the restoration ecology and the environmental economics, which are just at their starting points. The study of mangrove in Leizhou Peninsula drops behind of the most other parts of mangrove world, up to the present less then 20 scientific papers have been published.This paper described the mangrove and its conservational strategy in Leizhou Peninsula in the fields of taxonomy, community ecology, restoration ecology, environmental economics and conservational management science, and the following are the research results:1. Based on both former researches and author' s field observation in Leizhou Peninsula. The mangrove flora of Leizhou Peninsula consisted of native 28 family 50 species(including 3 varieties), among them there were 8 family 13 mangrove species, 6 family 9 semi-mangrove species(including 1 variety), 11 family 15 associate species(including 1 varieties), and other 9 family 13 species(including 1 variety). There were 3 family 7 exotic species introducedfrom Hainan Province. The author recorded Vitex trifolia var. simplicifolia and Scaevolci hainanensis as 2 new semi-mangrove species of the area. There were 14 major mangrove associations, each with one or a few dominant species in simple space structure at height 2-5m and with coverage rate 0.5-0.95, distributed in more than 100 locations along the coastlines. Among the mangrove associations, Ass. Avicennia marina occupied the largest area and Ass. Kandclia candel was the second. The progress succesion of each mangrove association tends to be single species dominant association as its climax. In the past 8 year period 41% mangrove area disappeared due to the mangrove land transferring for other usage and the frequent human activities caused dwarf landscapes of most native mangroves.2 . According to the method of space-substitute-time with condition of similariiv of the environments before planting, three Sonneratia aprtala plantation plots (planted in 2000, 1997, 1!)95, respectively) in Fuchen, Leizhou were selected for the mangrove restoration changes analyses on soil characteristics with a research goal to understand the mangrove restoration' s ecological process in soil. A total of 9 soil samples were collected in the field in April 2001, with each plot having three soil samples from the depth 0-20cm, 20~40cmand 40~60cm below the soil surface. Test items included pH(soil: water=2.5:1), wind dried soil' s water content(105 "C for 5h), physical particle component, organic content, total salt content, total N, total P, total Fe, and water soluble ions of CO:,", HCO,~, Ca~*, Mg", SO,"", CF. The results of the items varied as: pH...