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6 views4 pages

Kkihuuj

Uploaded by

toppoaniket44
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Importance of Wetlands , Mangroves and Coral Reefs

Wetlands

Wetlands are complex ecosystems, and encompass a wide range of inland, coastal and marine

habitats.

They share the characteristics of both wet and dry environments and show immense diversity

based on their genesis, geographical location, hydrological regimes, and substrate factors. They

include flood, plains, swamps, marshes, tidal marshes, etc.

According to the Ramsar Convention, wetlands are areas of marsh fen, peat land or water,
whether artificial or natural, permanent or temporary, with the water static or flowing, brackish
or salt, including marine areas, depth of which does not exceed 6 metre. As such mangroves,

corals, estuaries, creeks, bays, sea grasses and lakes, etc., are covered under this definition.

Among the most productive life support systems, wetlands have immense socio-economic and
ecological importance for mankind. They are crucial to the survival of natural biodiversity and
are recognised as sources, sinks and transformers of biological and chemical matter.

India’s wetlands are distributed in different geographical regions. They occur in the cold arid
zone of Ladakh, the wet humid climate of Imphal, the warm arid zone of Rajasthan, tropical
monsoonic central India, and the wet humid zone of the southern peninsula. Most of wetlands are
rectly, with the major river systems such as Ganga, Brahmaputra, Narmada, Godavari, Krishna
and Cauvery.

Mangroves:

The word ‘mangroves’ covers a number of forest ecosystems whose common feature is that the

major constituent, namely the mangrove vegetation, tolerates both relatively high water salinity

and flooding at regular intervals. They are reservoirs of a large number of plant and animal

species associated together over a long evolutionary time and tolerant of the same environmental

conditions.

he Indian Pacific region is known for its luxuriant mangroves. Some of the best mangroves in the

world occur in the alluvial deltas of Ganga, Godavari, Krishna and Cauvery and in the islands of
Andaman and Nicobar. Mangroves occur all along the Indian coastline in sheltered estuary, tidal

creeks, backwaters, salt marshes and mudflats.

The rich biological variety provides sources of livelihood for the people living around.

Coral Reefs:

Coral reefs are large underwater structures composed of the skeletons of colonial marine
invertebrates called coral. The coral species that build reefs are known as hermatypic, or "hard,"
corals because they extract calcium carbonate from seawater to create a hard, durable
exoskeleton that protects their soft, sac-like bodies. Other species of corals that are not involved
in reef building are known as “soft” corals.

The water must also be clear so that a maximum amount of light penetrates it. This is because
most reef-building corals contain photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae, which live in their
tissues. The corals and algae have a unique relationship. The coral provides the algae with a
protected environment and compounds they need for photosynthesis. In return, the algae produce
oxygen and help the coral to remove wastes. Most importantly, zooxanthellae supply the coral
with food. The algae need light in order to produce food via photosynthesis.

These algae live inside the coral polyp's body where they photosynthesize to produce energy for
themselves and the polyps. The polyps, in turn, provide a home and carbon dioxide for the algae.
Additionally, the zooxanthellae provide the coral with their lively colors — most coral polyp
bodies are clear and colorless without algae
Reef-building corals cannot tolerate water temperatures below 64° Fahrenheit (18° Celsius).
Many grow optimally in water temperatures between 73° and 84° Fahrenheit (23°–
29°Celsius), but some can tolerate temperatures as high as 104° Fahrenheit (40° Celsius) for
short periods.

coral reefs and several threats.

The increasing acidification of the ocean — caused when oceans absorb immense amounts of
carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere through the burning of fossil fuels — inhibits coral's
ability to produce the calcium carbonate exoskeletons they rely on for shelter.

Water pollution, too, is wreaking havoc on coral reefs. Agricultural pesticides and fertilizers, oil
and gasoline, sewage discharge and sediment from eroded landscapes make it difficult for coral
to thrive, and therefore damage the complex relationships that exist among the plants, coral and
other animals that are part of the reef ecosystem.

As the temperatures of the world's oceans increase due to global warming, coral polyps expel the
zooxanthellae they depend on for food. Once the zooxanthellae are gone, the coral loses its
brilliant color, and all that can be seen is the white exoskeleton; this is referred to as coral
bleaching. Coral colonies subject to bleaching usually die off, according to CORAL.

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