Mangroves in Bragança, Brazil

Research aims

Mangroves sequester more carbon in stable anoxic sediments than most other marine or terrestrial ecosystems, contributing to the mitigation of CO2-driven climate change. This service, based on above and below ground biomass production and decomposition processes, strongly depends on the diversity and species composition of the sediment microbiota and fauna.

Based on a cross-continental comparison, this project will provide detailed information on microbe-driven sediment processes related to organic matter turnover and C-sequestration in mangrove areas, and how they are affected by the flora and fauna and their use by local populations. Understanding these relationships will help to develop management plans for future sustainable exploitation of mangroves for natural resources, and will serve to ensure efficient C-sequestration in tropical coastal sediments through providing a sound scientific basis for spatially planning protected areas and networks according to where relevant services are provided most efficiently.

Thus, DiSeMiNation aims at unravelling how the floral and faunal communities, environmental conditions and human resource use govern service-relevant microbial processes in mangrove eco-systems, and how related services spatially contribute to the benefit of users.

The innovative combination of cutting-edge technologies and methods in biology, chemistry and socio-ecological sciences into a “conservation-omics” framework, will provide a sound basis for knowledge-driven spatial conservation planning not solely in mangroves, but will also be easily transferrable to other coastal ecosystems.


Quarterly Newsletters:

DiSeMiNation Newsletter #1 2017

DiSeMiNation Newsletter #1 2018

DiSeMiNation Newsletter #2 2018

Stakeholder Workshop Reports:

Stakeholder Workshop Singapore #1 2017

Stakeholder Workshop South Africa #2 2018

 

 

 

Project Partners (Germany)

 

International Project Partners

Leibniz Centre for Tropical Marine Research (ZMT)

WG Mangrove Ecology (Prof. Dr. M. Zimmer, Dr. Véronique Helfer)

WG Spatial Ecology and Interactions (Dr. H. Reuter)

Office for Knowledge Exchange

Leibniz Association

Prof. Dr Jörg Overmann, Dr Olga Jeske, Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorgansimen und Zellkulturen (DSMZ), Braunschweig

Dr. Karsten Grunewald, Leibniz-Institut für Ökologische Raumentwicklung (IÖR), Dresden

Dr. Steffen Neumann, Chris Ulpinnis, Leibniz-Institut für Pflanzenbiochemie (IPB), Halle

 

 

Prof. Daniel Friess National University of Singapore (NUS), Singapore

Prof. Ulf Mehlig Universidade Federal do Pará (UFPA), Campus Braganca, Brazil

Prof. José Ernesto Mançera Pineda, Universidad Nacional de Colombia (UNAL), Colombia

Prof. Malick Diouf Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD), Senegal

Prof. Stuart Kininmonth, University of the South Pacific (USP), Fiji

Fiona Mackay, Oceanographic Research Institute (ORI), South Africa