University of Wollongong Research Online Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health - Papers: Faculty of Science, Medicine and Health Part B 2018 Mangroves and coral reefs: David Stoddart and the Cambridge physiographic tradition Colin D. Woodroffe University of Wollongong,
[email protected] Publication Details Woodroffe, C. D. (2018). Mangroves and coral reefs: David Stoddart and the Cambridge physiographic tradition. Atoll Research Bulletin, 619 121-145. Research Online is the open access institutional repository for the University of Wollongong. For further information contact the UOW Library:
[email protected] Mangroves and coral reefs: David Stoddart and the Cambridge physiographic tradition Abstract Mangroves are particularly extensive on sheltered, macrotidal, muddy tropical coastlines, but also occur in association with coral reefs. Reefs attenuate wave energy, in some locations enabling the accretion of fine calcareous sediments which in turn favour establishment of seagrasses and mangroves. Knowledge of the distribution and ecology of both reefs and mangroves increased in the first half of the 20th century. J Alfred Steers participated in the Great Barrier Reef Expedition in 1928, and developed an interest in the geomorphological processes by which islands had formed in this setting. It became clear that many mangrove forests showed a zonation of species and some researchers inferred successional changes, even implying that reefs might transition through a mangrove stage, ultimately forming land. Valentine Chapman studied the ecology of mangroves, and Steers and Chapman described West Indian mangrove islands in the 1940s during the University of Cambridge expedition to Jamaica. These studies provided the background for David Stoddart's participation in the Cambridge Expedition to British Honduras and his PhD examination of three Caribbean atolls.