Cargando…
Disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors
Free-floating and rootless submerged macrophytes are typical, mutually exclusive vegetation types that can alternatively dominate in stagnant and slow flowing inland water bodies. A dominance of free-floating plants has been associated with a lower number of aquatic ecosystem services and can be exp...
Autores principales: | , , , , , |
---|---|
Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
Frontiers Media S.A.
2022
|
Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9660258/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36388490 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.963579 |
_version_ | 1784830383018213376 |
---|---|
author | Szabó, Sándor Koleszár, Gergő Zavanyi, Györgyi Nagy, Péter Tamás Braun, Mihály Hilt, Sabine |
author_facet | Szabó, Sándor Koleszár, Gergő Zavanyi, Györgyi Nagy, Péter Tamás Braun, Mihály Hilt, Sabine |
author_sort | Szabó, Sándor |
collection | PubMed |
description | Free-floating and rootless submerged macrophytes are typical, mutually exclusive vegetation types that can alternatively dominate in stagnant and slow flowing inland water bodies. A dominance of free-floating plants has been associated with a lower number of aquatic ecosystem services and can be explained by shading of rootless submerged macrophytes. Vice versa, high pH and competition for several nutrients have been proposed to explain the dominance of rootless submerged macrophytes. Here, we performed co-culture experiments to disentangle the influence of limitation by different nutrients, by pH effects and by allelopathy in sustaining the dominance of rootless submerged macrophytes. Specifically, we compared the effects of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) deficiencies and an increased pH from 7 to 10 in reducing the growth of free-floating Lemna gibba by the rootless Ceratophyllum demersum. These macrophyte species are among the most common in highly eutrophic, temperate water bodies and known to mutually exclude each other. After co-culture experiments, additions of nutrients and pH neutralisation removed the growth inhibition of free-floating plants. Among the experimentally tested factors significantly inhibiting the growth of L. gibba, an increase in pH had the strongest effect, followed by depletion of P, N and Fe. Additional field monitoring data revealed that in water bodies dominated by C. demersum, orthophosphate concentrations were usually sufficient for optimal growth of free-floating plants. However, pH was high and dissolved inorganic N concentrations far below levels required for optimal growth. Low N concentrations and alkaline pH generated by dense C. demersum stands are thus key factors sustaining the stable dominance of rootless submerged vegetation against free-floating plants. Consequently, N loading from e.g. agricultural runoff, groundwater or stormwater is assumed to trigger regime shifts to a dominance of free-floating plants and associated losses in ecosystem services. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-9660258 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2022 |
publisher | Frontiers Media S.A. |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-96602582022-11-15 Disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors Szabó, Sándor Koleszár, Gergő Zavanyi, Györgyi Nagy, Péter Tamás Braun, Mihály Hilt, Sabine Front Plant Sci Plant Science Free-floating and rootless submerged macrophytes are typical, mutually exclusive vegetation types that can alternatively dominate in stagnant and slow flowing inland water bodies. A dominance of free-floating plants has been associated with a lower number of aquatic ecosystem services and can be explained by shading of rootless submerged macrophytes. Vice versa, high pH and competition for several nutrients have been proposed to explain the dominance of rootless submerged macrophytes. Here, we performed co-culture experiments to disentangle the influence of limitation by different nutrients, by pH effects and by allelopathy in sustaining the dominance of rootless submerged macrophytes. Specifically, we compared the effects of nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) deficiencies and an increased pH from 7 to 10 in reducing the growth of free-floating Lemna gibba by the rootless Ceratophyllum demersum. These macrophyte species are among the most common in highly eutrophic, temperate water bodies and known to mutually exclude each other. After co-culture experiments, additions of nutrients and pH neutralisation removed the growth inhibition of free-floating plants. Among the experimentally tested factors significantly inhibiting the growth of L. gibba, an increase in pH had the strongest effect, followed by depletion of P, N and Fe. Additional field monitoring data revealed that in water bodies dominated by C. demersum, orthophosphate concentrations were usually sufficient for optimal growth of free-floating plants. However, pH was high and dissolved inorganic N concentrations far below levels required for optimal growth. Low N concentrations and alkaline pH generated by dense C. demersum stands are thus key factors sustaining the stable dominance of rootless submerged vegetation against free-floating plants. Consequently, N loading from e.g. agricultural runoff, groundwater or stormwater is assumed to trigger regime shifts to a dominance of free-floating plants and associated losses in ecosystem services. Frontiers Media S.A. 2022-10-31 /pmc/articles/PMC9660258/ /pubmed/36388490 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.963579 Text en Copyright © 2022 Szabó, Koleszár, Zavanyi, Nagy, Braun and Hilt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
spellingShingle | Plant Science Szabó, Sándor Koleszár, Gergő Zavanyi, Györgyi Nagy, Péter Tamás Braun, Mihály Hilt, Sabine Disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors |
title | Disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors |
title_full | Disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors |
title_fullStr | Disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors |
title_full_unstemmed | Disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors |
title_short | Disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors |
title_sort | disentangling the mechanisms sustaining a stable state of submerged macrophyte dominance against free-floating competitors |
topic | Plant Science |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9660258/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36388490 http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.963579 |
work_keys_str_mv | AT szabosandor disentanglingthemechanismssustainingastablestateofsubmergedmacrophytedominanceagainstfreefloatingcompetitors AT koleszargergo disentanglingthemechanismssustainingastablestateofsubmergedmacrophytedominanceagainstfreefloatingcompetitors AT zavanyigyorgyi disentanglingthemechanismssustainingastablestateofsubmergedmacrophytedominanceagainstfreefloatingcompetitors AT nagypetertamas disentanglingthemechanismssustainingastablestateofsubmergedmacrophytedominanceagainstfreefloatingcompetitors AT braunmihaly disentanglingthemechanismssustainingastablestateofsubmergedmacrophytedominanceagainstfreefloatingcompetitors AT hiltsabine disentanglingthemechanismssustainingastablestateofsubmergedmacrophytedominanceagainstfreefloatingcompetitors |