ABSTRACT
Mangroves are found all along the sweep of Eastern Atlantic coastline that traverses the tropics from Mauritania in the north to Angola in the south. At their latitudinal extremes, diversity is low, trees are dwarfed and distribution is limited by aridity and a lack of suitable sheltered sites. Moving towards the equator, rainfall increases and river flows become larger and less seasonal. In the west, one of the most mangrove-rich coastlines in the world, known as Les Rivières du Sud, extends from the Saloum Estuary in Senegal to Sherbro Island in Liberia. Here there are some 7900 square kilometres of mangroves in a series of deltaic and estuarine formations, benefiting from lower wave energies and high riverine inputs. Eastwards from here, the coast is dominated by high-energy sandy shores and most mangrove formations from Liberia to Nigeria are found in coastal lagoons, separated from the sea by extensive sandbars. Mangroves of the Niger Delta cover over 6600 square kilometres – one of the largest contiguous mangrove tracts in the world, and east from here there are other very large and open estuarine/deltaic formations through Cameroon to Gabon. Finally, in the south, most formations tend to be narrower estuarine and lagoonal formations, becoming less frequent as conditions become more arid along the coastline of Angola.
