Floating Mat Formation Makes Zizania latifolia More Competitive under the Conditions of Continuous Significant Water Level Rise.

Water level rise is considered an environmental filter for the growth and reproduction of aquatic plants in lakes. Some emergent macrophytes can form floating mats, enabling them to escape from the negative effects of deep water. However, an understanding of which species can be uprooted and form floating mats easily and what factors affect these tendencies remains greatly elusive. We conducted an experiment to determine whether the monodominance of Zizania latifolia in the emergent vegetation community in Lake Erhai was related to its floating mat formation ability and to try to find the reasons for its floating mat formation ability during the continuous increase in water level over the past few decades. Our results showed that both the frequency and biomass proportion of Z. latifolia were greater among the plants on the floating mats. Furthermore, Z. latifolia was more likely to be uprooted than the other three previously dominant emergent species due to its smaller angle between the plant and the horizontal plane, rather than the root:shoot or volume:mass ratios. The dominance of Z. latifolia in the emergent community in Lake Erhai is due to its easier ability to become uprooted, allowing it to outperform other emergent species and become the single dominant emergent species under the environmental filter of deep water. The ability to uproot and form floating mats may be a competitive survival strategy for emergent species under the conditions of continuous significant water level rise.

The latitudinal and longitudinal allelopathic patterns of an invasive alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) in China.

Allelopathy has been considered a good explanation for the successful invasion of some invasive plants. However, the real latitudinal and longitudinal allelopathic effects on native species have rarely been documented since many exotics have spread widely. We conducted a Petri dish experiment to determine the latitudinal and longitudinal allelopathic patterns of an invasive alligator weed (Alternanthera philoxeroides) on a common crop (Lactuca sativa) in China, and find what determines the allelopathic intensity. The results showed that the allelopathic effects of A. philoxeroides increased with the latitude while decreased with the longitude. This indicated that A. philoxeroides used its allelopathy to gain competitive advantages more in its recent invaded communities than that in its early invaded ones as A. philoxeroides is expanding from southeast China to northwest China. Furthermore, we found that the allelopathic intensity of A. philoxeroide was negatively correlated to the leaf contents of soluble carbohydrate (SC), carbon (C) and nitrogen (N), but that was positively correlated to the leaf contents of soluble protein (SP), free amino acids (FAA), plant polyphenol (PP), phosphorus (P) and potassium (K). These results suggested that the allelopathic intensity of A. philoxeroide was more determined by the limited P and K nutrients as well as the intermediate allelochemicals (SP, FAA, PP) rather than the unlimited C, N and SC. Thus, we can speculate that the negative or positive effects of plant aqueous extracts are a function of not only the extract concentrations but also the trade-offs between inhibition and promotion of all components in the extracts. Then we could reduce the allelopathic effects of A. philoxeroide by controlling the component contents in the plant tissues, by fertilization or other managements, especially in the plant recent invaded communities.

High-light inhibition of two submerged macrophytes in a shallow water experiment.

The negative effects, caused by high light, on algae, terrestrial and marine aquatic plants are well documented; those negative effects on freshwater submerged plants are, however, not well known. We determined the negative effects of two common submerged species, Myriophyllum spicatum and Vallisneria natans, on their growth and reproduction in a shallow water experiment along an irradiance gradient. Our results highlighted that the plant mass, relative growth rate and shoot height of V. natans and M. spicatum, and root mass and root length:root mass of M. spicatum and leaf mass and shoot height:shoot mass of V. natans were significantly negatively affected in shallow water with high-light regime (>50 % of full light). While the ramet number of the two species was stimulated by from 20.0 to 36.4 %, and root length, root:shoot, chlorophyll (a:b), chlorophyll (a + b), leaf carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus contents of the two studied macrophytes were not significantly impacted by light. Our results indicated that the high-light inhibition of plant growth was greater on the shoots than on the roots of the plants, although these effects were significantly different between the two studied submerged species and among the measured traits. Accordingly, we should avoid negative effects caused by high light to improve the performance of submerged species when we conduct submerged aquatic vegetation restoration programmes in eutrophic lakes.