Ed Proffitt, a professor of marine ecology at Texas A&M-Corpus Christi, left, and Max Portmann, a PhD student with the Proffitt-Delvin Lab of Coastal Ecology and Genetics, look at a young black mangrove near Oso Bay in Corpus Christi on April 18, 2024.PORT ARANSAS — Dead mangroves cover Harbor Island near this coastal city, creating a bleak landscape that contrasts with the calm, blue water that laps at the shore.
The way mangroves are re-making the Texas coastline is one more example of how human-caused climate change is already altering our environment. Like other animals and plants, mangroves can now live farther north because temperatures are warming. Why mangroves can be good: They could help protect against sea level rise because their stick-like roots help build up the soil height and their falling leaves decompose into soil. One study determined that they were better than salt marsh succulent plants at protecting against erosion. They offer habitat for migratory songbirds.
The mangroves here used to provide habitat and protect the shoreline, which made losing them a negative thing. But she said scientists could learn from that loss — and from their potential recovery.Black mangroves have been in Texas forever, said Alejandro Fierro-Cabo, an associate professor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, who specializes in restoration ecology.
Walking down a slope on the back side of the Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi campus, marine ecology professor Ed Proffitt pointed out the healthy, bushy mangroves near the edge of Oso Bay — one of the locations where he and students study mangroves. Marsh plants stretched out around and behind the mangroves.
“They’re coming back in some places faster than others, but they’ll probably come back in all these places,” Proffitt said. “It’s just going to take a while. The question becomes: Are they going to come back before there’s erosion and subsidence that will convert it all to something else like open water?”
“It’s not something that we can necessarily control — or should we be even controlling?” said Harris, the TPWD ecologist, adding, “There’s a lot of mixed emotions with it because mangroves do provide very useful habitat. … But is it a good thing that some salt marsh is being converted into mangroves?”“It’s going to be good for some species and it won’t be good for others.”
How did their numbers get so small? There probably weren’t too many of the birds to begin with, maybe 10,000 before their decline. And people hunted the large birds, which stand around five feet tall, for their meat and feathers. They also snatched up their eggs.
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