Initial decomposition of floating leaf blades of waterlilies: causes, damage types and impacts

Author:

Klok Peter F.12,van der Velde Gerard13

Affiliation:

1. Department of Animal Ecology and Physiology, Institute for Water and Wetland Research, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

2. Department of Particle Physics, Institute for Mathematics, Astrophysics and Particle Physics, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

3. Naturalis Biodiversity Center, Leiden, Netherlands

Abstract

The initial decomposition of large floating-leaved macrophytes, such as waterlilies, can be studied by following changes in leaf damage and area loss of leaf blades tagged in their natural environment. This approach was taken in the present study to examine the initial decomposition patterns of floating leaf blades of Nuphar lutea (L.) Sm., Nymphaea alba L. and Nymphaea candida C. Presl at three freshwater sites differing in nutrient status, alkalinity and pH. Floating leaf blades of the three plant species were tagged and numbered within established replicate plots and the leaf length, percentages and types of damage and decay of all tagged leaves were recorded weekly during the growing season. Microbial decay, infection by phytopathogenic fungi (Colletotrichum nymphaeae) and oomycetes (Pythium sp.), consumption by pond snails, and mechanical factors were the most important causes of leaf damage. Several types of succession comprising different causes of damage were distinguished during the season. For example, young floating leaves are affected by more or less specialized invertebrate species consuming leaf tissue, followed by non-specialized invertebrate species feeding on the damaged floating leaves. In the two investigated hardwater lakes the seasonal patterns of initial decomposition differed between Nymphaea and Nuphar.

Publisher

PeerJ

Subject

General Agricultural and Biological Sciences,General Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology,General Medicine,General Neuroscience

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