In mangrove, terrestrial organisms live at the upper level while marine organisms live at the base due to the height of trees. It is in fact a mixture of both marine and terrestrial animals in the area of mangrove.
Terrestrial animals in the mangrove have no special adaptation. They include a large variety of terrestrial arthropods which forage on marine animals at the low tide. So, they spend their lives in the upper reach of tree and marine water.
Marine animals appear and live so differently from those in muddy shores due to the vast, hard surface area of root in the mangrove.They either inhabits the hard substrate of numerous stilt root of mangrove or occupy the mud.The most dominant of them are the mollusks, crustaceans and fishes.
There are two classes of mollusks comonly found in the mangrove. One is the Gastropoda which are snails lives on roots and trunks. Another class is the bivalves which attached to roots forming significance biomass. They all feed on mud surface at lo tide, but they also climb up trees to escape from their predators such as fish and crabs.
Crustaceans are numerous in the mangrove. Large-sized crabs produce burrows in soft substrate to provide refuges from predators as well as a breeding place. Fiddler crab is one of the typical species which hide inide the mud to feed on algae and detritus left on the surface by retreating tide. Another one is the soldier crab. They hide in their holes and feed by sifting through wet sand, leaving neat round balls of sand behind them. Although these burrows produced by crabs may inhibit the mangrove, they can also allow oxygen to enter more deeply into the substrate.
Mangrove is also a nursery ground for fish and shrimps which are abundant in water and mud. One type of fish commonly found in the mangrove in mudskippers. Instead of living in the water, they spend most of their lives out of water crawling around on the mud flat and climbing mangrove roots. They creat burrows in mud for refuge and breeding. They move fast on the exposed mud flat by their pectoral fins or tails and caudal fins. Their eyes are set high to focus in air. Their gills are reduced and repires by aerial respiration system by vascularized sacs.
There are also various kinds of animals in the mangrove. Birds travel to and from the breed ground which is an important stopover site for them. And there are also some invertebrates which inhibits prop roots.
