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The main reason that there is such a biological richness in the marine
ecosystems
of this part of Costa Rica is due to a phenomenon called SURGENCIA,
which cools the ocean
water in the dry season to temperatures reaching 16C.
The surgencia stirs up the nutrients in the ocean, providing a feast
that attracts the entire food chain.
This phenomenon is caused by the upper layers of the ocean being pushed
by
the trade winds and the cooler, deeper waters laden with nutrients,
being
brought to the surface, causing an increase in the marine flora and
fauna.
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| Ocean
Food & Nutrients |
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| Education
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Literature
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Children's Classic Literature
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Marine Animals
The
richness in species is awakening the interest of many marine
scientists,
especially in the areas adjacent to the Islas Murcielago (Bat Islands).
This
has influenced the recent discovery of coral reefs in this area and has
led
to the creation of a biological station which is dedicated to the marine
ecosystem investigation, located on the island of San Jose, the
largest on
the archipelago Murcielago. §
The different coastal environments that are found include:
mangrove forests,
sandy and rocky beaches, many inlets that serve as refuges and breeding
grounds
for marine birds, rocky outcrops that protect many of the commercial
fish
species, and the coral reefs mentioned earlier.
| Mangrove Forest Ecosystems |
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| River Mouth Estuary |
Mangroves & Coastal Environments
Mangroves are forests that grow in between the area of low and high
tide
and have plant and animal associations that are characteristic of this
environment.
The most important of these are the commercial species of fish that lay
their
eggs here and undergo part of their lifecycles in the roots of the
mangrove
trees.
Within this richness of marine habitat is found a huge fish
resource, which
is one of the most abundant in the country. There is also a large
population
of sea turtles and many of the coral species found in the Pacific
region
of Costa Rica.
In the coastal areas of Guanacaste Costa Rica
there are six mangrove forests. These ecosystems present the
characteristics of mangroves
in dry and arid regions in Costa Rica.
One of the rarest mangrove forest ecosystems has a lesser kind
of
development which is caused by lowered rainfall rates and the increased
concentration of salt in the soil. One of
the most important is located at Potrero Grande, because it is the most
developed
mangrove forest in the area and it marks the northern limit of the
pinuela mangroves of the Pacific Region of Central America. §
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