What if I asked you if you wanted to take a class over Christmas break? Most of your time would be spent in lecture or lab for 11 days, complete with homework, a final exam, and a project to finish before you even started your second semester classes.

Now what if I told you that this class would take place outside, and that the major assignments would consist of snorkeling, collecting marine organisms, and measuring tidal pools? On top of this, you would have to do some obligatory hiking, swimming, and sightseeing on a tropical island, and the study session for the final exam would be held on the beach.

This is how about thirty students from MLC, BLC, UM Morris, and WLC, together with three professors spent our Christmas break. The course was Marine Ecology; the classroom was Discovery Bay Marine Laboratory on the Jamaica’s north shore. The amount of knowledge and experiences we gained in the 11 days we spent there was almost overwhelming. I could write pages upon pages about what we saw and learned, but one remarkable creation we studied speaks volumes about the hand of God in creation: the mangrove tree.

To say that the mangrove tree is unique would be a gross understatement. At first, the red mangrove appears to be like any other tree, until you notice that it dangles its roots casually in salt water. And, as any fifth grade student who’s completed a science fair project can tell you, if you pour salt water on a plant’s roots, it has the tendency to die. But, as we saw in Jamaica, the edge of the salty ocean is prime mangrove habitat. Several varieties of mangroves—red, black, and white—are found along the Jamaican coast at varying distances from the ocean. So how exactly does the mangrove survive? Join me on a walk through a Jamaican mangrove swamp as we take a look at some of the unique challenges the mangroves face, and how they are created to overcome those challenges.

In the mangrove swamp, the trees are rooted in waterlogged soil that has roughly the consistency of chocolate pudding. A typical Midwest tree in that type of soil would quickly uproot because it would be top-heavy. Mangroves, however, are well-equipped to overcome this problem. The red mangroves have aerial roots that extend above the ground, similar to a tripod. This effectively lowers the center of gravity—the tree has the stability of a sports car instead of a motor home.

As I mentioned earlier, mangrove trees are found on the very edge of the coastline. In fact, they trap sediment over dozens of years, which enables them to extend to the coastline. Some of the mangroves we saw in Jamaica had set root a good hundred yards off the edge of shore. The ability to live at the edge of the salty ocean is quite an accomplishment. Seawater is approximately 3.5% salt, seventy times what is found in fresh water. If you were to place a typical tree in seawater, most of the water inside the plant would rush out into the surroundings because of osmosis. The mangrove has to be able to transport the dense seawater up its trunk while filtering out the salt. How does it work? Mangroves essentially have a stronger system to draw water up their trunk, similar to placing a stronger pump in a fish tank. They are able to fi lter out about 90% of the salt as it is drawn up the trunk. Both the black and white mangroves have salt glands to help them remove the majority of the salt that remains.

The final issue that these trees face is the problem of breathing—they need oxygen for respiration. Mangrove roots are unable to breathe in the water-logged sediment, much like a swimmer who accidentally tries to take a breath underwater. Mangroves have very unique traits that enable them to overcome this problem. The red mangroves have little bumps on their aerial roots, called lenticels, which allow them to breathe. The lenticels close when they come into contact with water. Black and white mangroves have a different structure that accomplishes the same purpose. Breathing roots, called pneumatophores, extend above the surface of the sediment. The pneumatophores function in the same way that a snorkel does; they are above the level of the water, and enable the mangrove to breathe. A single black mangrove tree may have up to 10,000 pneumatophores.

If you were to talk to an evolutionist about the mangroves, you would probably hear an explanation that goes something like this. “Well… the mangroves didn’t start out with any of these special features. In fact, they weren’t even found near the ocean. But one day there just happened to be a tree that happened to have a high tolerance for salt, and it grew closer to the sea. One of its descendants accidentally received a genetic mutation that caused its roots to stick out above the water. This was a happy accident that made the tree more stable. While these other things were happening, one of these trees also happened to develop lenticels on the roots which allowed it to breathe better. And suddenly the mangrove tree was equipped to live in its new habitat.” The evolutionist might go on to say how crabs happened to wander onto the scene one day, and happened to fi gure out that, if they bury mangrove leaves in the mud for a while and dig them up again, they’re pretty tasty. In this same way, the themes of mutation and natural selection would be used to explain everything that happens—fi rst for each individual organism, then for the ecosystem.

This line of evolutionary thought reduces God’s marvelous insight in creation to a hodgepodge of happenstance and happy accidents. Sadly, this is what many people see when they look at creation. The truth is that the mangroves trees, together with all other creatures, were created by God with the exact traits they need to fulfi ll their role in their ecosystem, and in creation. Genesis 1:31 tells us that after creation, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good.”

The example of the mangroves can serve to highlight the difference between how creation is viewed by a believer and an unbeliever. The unbelieving scientist will seek to find a solution that is rational, logical, and finally fits his paradigm. For many evolutionists, many explanations, however far-fetched, are acceptable as long as they do not invoke anything other than natural means, especially the Creator. Some evolutionists would much more readily believe that life was put on Earth by aliens than even pause to consider Creation. This is indeed radically different from the Christian, who sees everything through eyes of faith. Scripture tells us clearly that the natural knowledge of God is evident to all people. Romans 1:19-20 tells us, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.” Evidence of the Creator is indeed present throughout creation, from the smallest phytoplankton in the sea to the mighty redwoods, from the barracuda to the great blue whale, from the morning sunrise to the highest jagged mountain peak. All of creation does indeed speak volumes to the work of the Creator.

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