Physiological Responses of Mangroves to Flooding and Anaerobic Stress

Flooding and anaerobic stress is one of the stress factors affecting mangroves.Mangrove species,differing considerably in their susceptibility to the stress,are distributed in different tidal elevation zones.Growing in regular seawater dipping and anoxic mud,mangroves have developed a set of adaptation mechanisms of flooding and anaerobic stress.This paper emphatically reviewed four physiological responses of mangroves to flooding and anaerobic stress,i.e.nutrition allocation, photosynthesis and respiration,carbon and nitrogen metabolism and antioxidant mechanism.Finally,it was proposed that studies should be further focused on the path of roots metabolism,non-structure carbohydrates and secondary metabolism of the mangroves under flooding and anaerobic condition.