The Forgotten Forests: Mangroves' Future Hangs in the Balance Between Land and Sea

The mangal, it's called, this tangle of roots that makes up the mangrove forest biome. There, trees with twisted limbs live in two worlds—one foot on land, the other in the sea.

Mangals thrive in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics. Neither solely of land nor of sea, these forests of the tide cover an area of 150,000 km² in 123 nations and territories—less than 1% of all tropical forests worldwide, and less than 0.4% of the total global forest "estate."

Plug Your Power Cord Into the Seafloor? Seabed Bacteria Function as Live Electric Cables

Man-made power cables crisscross the globe, but could nature have designed its own electrical cords—and hidden them at the bottom of the sea?

That's exactly what happened, according to researchers from Aarhus University in Denmark. They discovered natural electrical currents running through the mud on the seabed of Aarhus Bay. Electrons are transported from oxygen-free mud a few centimeters beneath the seafloor to oxygen-rich mud on the surface of the seabed.

Living Light on the Deep-Sea Floor: Bioluminescence Also Shines in the Benthos

Cable bacteria aren't the only unusual creatures at the bottom of the sea.

Sudden blue flashes. Shooting beams of red light. An eerie green glow. All are surreal displays put on by deep-sea animals that are bioluminescent.

Dybas, C.L. 2013. Ripple marks—The story behind the story. Oceanography 26(1):18–23, https://doi.org/10.5670/oceanog.2013.13.

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