Cargando…

Plant Litter Submergence Affects the Water Quality of a Constructed Wetland

Plant litter is an indispensable component of constructed wetlands, but how the submergence of plant litter affects their ecosystem functions and services, such as water purification, is still unclear. Moreover, it is also unclear whether the effects of plant litter submergence depend on other facto...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Pan, Xu, Ping, Yunmei, Cui, Lijuan, Li, Wei, Zhang, Xiaodong, Zhou, Jian, Yu, Fei-Hai, Prinzing, Andreas
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5271387/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28129405
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0171019
_version_ 1782501342322884608
author Pan, Xu
Ping, Yunmei
Cui, Lijuan
Li, Wei
Zhang, Xiaodong
Zhou, Jian
Yu, Fei-Hai
Prinzing, Andreas
author_facet Pan, Xu
Ping, Yunmei
Cui, Lijuan
Li, Wei
Zhang, Xiaodong
Zhou, Jian
Yu, Fei-Hai
Prinzing, Andreas
author_sort Pan, Xu
collection PubMed
description Plant litter is an indispensable component of constructed wetlands, but how the submergence of plant litter affects their ecosystem functions and services, such as water purification, is still unclear. Moreover, it is also unclear whether the effects of plant litter submergence depend on other factors such as the duration of litter submergence, water source or litter species identity. Here we conducted a greenhouse experiment by submerging the litter of 7 wetland plant species into three types of water substrates and monitoring changes in water nutrient concentrations. Litter submergence affected water quality positively via decreasing the concentration of nitrate nitrogen and negatively via increasing the concentrations of total nitrogen, ammonium nitrogen and total phosphorus. The effects of litter submergence depended on the duration of litter submergence, the water source, the litter species identity, and the plant life form. Different plant species had different effects on the water nutrient concentrations during litter submergence, and the effects of floating plants might be more negative than that of emergent plants. These results are novel evidence of how the submergence of different plant (life form) litter may affect the purification function of constructed wetlands. For water at low eutrophication levels, submerging a relative small amount of plant litter might improve water quality, via benefiting the denitrification process in water. These findings emphasized the management of floating plant litter (a potential removal) during the maintenance of human-controlled wetland ecosystems and provided a potential tool to improve the water quality of constructed wetlands via submerging plant litter of different types.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-5271387
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2017
publisher Public Library of Science
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-52713872017-02-06 Plant Litter Submergence Affects the Water Quality of a Constructed Wetland Pan, Xu Ping, Yunmei Cui, Lijuan Li, Wei Zhang, Xiaodong Zhou, Jian Yu, Fei-Hai Prinzing, Andreas PLoS One Research Article Plant litter is an indispensable component of constructed wetlands, but how the submergence of plant litter affects their ecosystem functions and services, such as water purification, is still unclear. Moreover, it is also unclear whether the effects of plant litter submergence depend on other factors such as the duration of litter submergence, water source or litter species identity. Here we conducted a greenhouse experiment by submerging the litter of 7 wetland plant species into three types of water substrates and monitoring changes in water nutrient concentrations. Litter submergence affected water quality positively via decreasing the concentration of nitrate nitrogen and negatively via increasing the concentrations of total nitrogen, ammonium nitrogen and total phosphorus. The effects of litter submergence depended on the duration of litter submergence, the water source, the litter species identity, and the plant life form. Different plant species had different effects on the water nutrient concentrations during litter submergence, and the effects of floating plants might be more negative than that of emergent plants. These results are novel evidence of how the submergence of different plant (life form) litter may affect the purification function of constructed wetlands. For water at low eutrophication levels, submerging a relative small amount of plant litter might improve water quality, via benefiting the denitrification process in water. These findings emphasized the management of floating plant litter (a potential removal) during the maintenance of human-controlled wetland ecosystems and provided a potential tool to improve the water quality of constructed wetlands via submerging plant litter of different types. Public Library of Science 2017-01-27 /pmc/articles/PMC5271387/ /pubmed/28129405 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0171019 Text en © 2017 Pan et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Pan, Xu
Ping, Yunmei
Cui, Lijuan
Li, Wei
Zhang, Xiaodong
Zhou, Jian
Yu, Fei-Hai
Prinzing, Andreas
Plant Litter Submergence Affects the Water Quality of a Constructed Wetland
title Plant Litter Submergence Affects the Water Quality of a Constructed Wetland
title_full Plant Litter Submergence Affects the Water Quality of a Constructed Wetland
title_fullStr Plant Litter Submergence Affects the Water Quality of a Constructed Wetland
title_full_unstemmed Plant Litter Submergence Affects the Water Quality of a Constructed Wetland
title_short Plant Litter Submergence Affects the Water Quality of a Constructed Wetland
title_sort plant litter submergence affects the water quality of a constructed wetland
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5271387/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28129405
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0171019
work_keys_str_mv AT panxu plantlittersubmergenceaffectsthewaterqualityofaconstructedwetland
AT pingyunmei plantlittersubmergenceaffectsthewaterqualityofaconstructedwetland
AT cuilijuan plantlittersubmergenceaffectsthewaterqualityofaconstructedwetland
AT liwei plantlittersubmergenceaffectsthewaterqualityofaconstructedwetland
AT zhangxiaodong plantlittersubmergenceaffectsthewaterqualityofaconstructedwetland
AT zhoujian plantlittersubmergenceaffectsthewaterqualityofaconstructedwetland
AT yufeihai plantlittersubmergenceaffectsthewaterqualityofaconstructedwetland
AT prinzingandreas plantlittersubmergenceaffectsthewaterqualityofaconstructedwetland