Area, Distribution and Species Composition of Mangroves in China

This paper systematically summarized the change characteristic of mangroves and their species composition. The geographical distribution of mangrove plants and their growth status are greatly affected by many external factors, including air temperature, ocean currents, waves, bank slopes, salinity, tides, and sediment and so on. Mangroves in China are mainly distributed in the southeast coast of the tropical and subtropical coastal bays,estuaries and other areas under waters. From Hainan Island towards the north, climate zones extend from central tropical zone(the south of Hainan Island), to northern tropical zone(the north of Hainan Island, south of Leizhou Peninsula and Taiwan Island), to southern subtropical zone(Guangxi province, Guangdong province, Fujian province, the south of Taiwan Island and southern coastal areas of Fujian province), to northern subtropical zone(the north of Fujian province and coastal areas of Zhejiang province). The area and population diversity of mangrove plants decline significantly with increasing latitudes, and forest stand also transforms from arbor to shrub, which fully demonstrated the macroscopically control effect of air temperature for the geographical distribution of mangrove plants. In terms of mangrove cover change, the total area of mangroves in China has been dramatically shrunk from 250 thousand ha in history, to 42 thousand ha in 1950, and to 22.8 thousand ha in2001. In 2001, descending order of existing area of mangroves in China's major provinces is: Guangdong province(9 084.0 ha), Guangxi province(8 374.9 ha), Hainan(3 930.3 ha), Fujian province(615.1 ha), Hong Kong Special Administrative Region(510 ha), Taiwan province(278 ha), Zhejiang province(19.9 ha), Macau Special Administrative Region(60 ha). For the species composition of mangrove plants, adding 2 species(Sonneratia apetala and Laguncularia racemosa) of successful introduced true-mangrove plants from abroad, now there is total 38 species of mangrove plants in China, including 26 species of true-mangrove plants and 12semi-mangrove plants.