The April, 1996, meeting on mangrove ecosystem function and biodiversity was supported by awards for training in global ecosystem function from the A. W. Mellon Foundation to Stanford University and the Carnegie Institution of Washington. LLH is supported by an NSF predoctoral fellowship. JFP is supported by a NASA Fellowship for Global Change Research. Thanks to P. M. Vitousek, R. J. Whittaker and an anonymous reviewer for valuable comments on earlier drafts of this manuscript. This is CIWDPB Publication number 1348.