Mite infestation kills mangroves in Laguna de Términos Nature Reserve, Campeche

In the municipality of Carmen, located south of Campeche, a plague of mites was detected which is causing the death of the mangroves located in the Laguna de Términos Nature Reserve.

So far, scattered patches have been detected that together cover a little more than 80 thousand square meters of mangrove affected by the mite plague.

"There are about 7 or 8 hectares that are from Nuevo Campechito to here in the Atasta Peninsula... We are very concerned because according to the color map that CONAFOR presented to us, it is beginning to spread to other areas, in the coming days we will do an exercise to attack and combat the pest," says Moisés Rosas González, technical operative of the flora and fauna reserve "Laguna de Términos".

"They damage the bark and that they also damage some other parts of the trees, but they are normally associated with debarking insects," said Enrique Lopez Contreras, researcher.

This mite has caused the mangroves to slowly die.

There are already patches of mangrove dead because of this pest, so it is a red light that has just been lit there, worrying because it is a pest that shoots up very quickly ... Its appearance is when they detect that the biological and biochemical conditions of the place are given, lend themselves to its growth and suddenly sprout," said Moisés Rosas González, technical operations of the reserve of flora and fauna "Laguna de Términos".

The Laguna de Términos flora and fauna conservation zone has a total extension of 706 thousand hectares of which 547 thousand are terrestrial, of which more than 100 thousand hectares are mangroves, one of the most important mangrove extensions in Mexico.