Josh Clark

A seedling is a small, viable tree.

It has everything it needs to grow.

So it's an individual organism.

And when the mangrove is growing the seedling on its tree, on itself, that's gestation.

Because when it drops off, it's like a giraffe dropping a baby out, like three or four feet above ground.

above the ground.

It's the same thing.

It's gestation.

It's a live birth of a plant.

It's nuts, man.

I love it.

Plants some roots out of its head and there you go.

Yeah, one of the reasons why these root systems and why the above water parts of the trees are all just so thick, like you were saying, it's so hard to get through, is because of the way that they drop seedlings right off of their tree right around them.

So these mangals develop into these really thick deposits of trees and shrubs above water and below water because they grow so closely together.

And as they grow, they migrate one way or another, or they just spread out one way or another, sometimes toward the ocean, sometimes behind them, sometimes to either side of the shore.

But that's how they grow, and that's why they're so dense too.

Yeah, and it's not just like a few kinds of fish, like things like octopi, sharks, shrimp, mollusks, just tons of different kinds of fish.

Like this is their nursery ground because these roots, these tangle of roots provide a place for juveniles to like hide out of reach of predators and get bigger and bigger because it's also a very nourishing place for them to eat too.

So they're really, really important as nurseries for all kinds of sea life.

Right, and so that's just the below-water part of the mangal.