Comparative study of mangrove litter nitrogen cycling to the adjacent estuary through modelling in pristine and reclaimed islands of Sundarban mangrove ecosystem, India

Sundarban mangrove ecosystem is consisted of many islands both virgin and reclaimed in nature. A seven compartment model featuring different forms of nitrogen in soil and water is applied on virgin island in order to compare for estimating several parameters with reclaimed island. The physical, chemical factors and other rate parameters are retained same as in reclaimed island model, published before. The study is carried out for over two years, primary and secondary data are used in the model belong to same time scale for both the islands. Loss rate of soil organic nitrogen as humic acid and fulvic acids is very sensitive parameter for both the systems. Model results depict that virgin island is detritus based system governed by leaching and microbial processes.