Impact of nutrient enrichment on habitat heterogeneity and species richness of aquatic macrophytes: evidence from freshwater tropical lakes of Central Ganga Plain, India

Dubey, Divya; Kumar, Saroj; Dutta, Venkatesh

doi:10.1007/s13762-021-03438-4

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 54 publications

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“…Most studies, however, focus just on one of the two habitats. Concerning the photic control of either the pelagic or the benthic habitat often takes advantage of z Secchi or z eu in field studies (pelagic habitat, e.g., Chen et al, 2003;Tolotti and Thies, 2002;Chorus et al, 2020;benthic habitat, e.g., Søndergaard et al, 2013;Baart et al, 2010;Dubey et al, 2021;Gao et al, 2020). In our study, however, we were able to show that the increase in the percentage of photic >12% pelagic habitat was not consistent with a concomitant increase in the percentage of photic >12% benthic habitat.…”

Section: Figurecontrasting

confidence: 82%

“…The perspective of z Secchi changed over three epochs (Teubner et al, 2021), i.e., 1) from a measure of physicooptical property estimating underwater distances, 2) to a biological perspective as indicator for lake eutrophication (e.g., Vollenweider, 1968), and 3) to a target parameter of overall success of sustained lake restoration and ecosystem services (e.g., Teubner et al, 2020). Using z Secchi as a proxy for estimating water quality or for z eu is therefore common in limnology (e.g., Ibelings et al, 2007;Znachor et al, 2018;Chang et al, 2020;Teubner et al, 2020;Dubey et al, 2021). Retrieving ambient light availability for primary producers from z Secchi , however, as exemplified in the present study, is complex.…”

Section: Retrieving Underwater Light Availability From Z Secchi For A...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…With an increase of the water transparency as the major target of lake restoration (Chorus et al, 2020;Teubner et al, 2020), light availability increases not only in the pelagic habitat but also in the benthic habitat, where it initializes macrophyte growth on sediment surface (Istvánovics et al, 2008;Pall, 2018;Dubey et al, 2021). The emergence of macrophytes raises the question to what extent in time and space an improvement of water transparency is reflected by an increase of photic >12% pelagic habitat size (% of total water volume) on the one side and by an increase of photic >12% benthic habitat size (% of total sediment surface area) on the other.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

“…This implies that "underwater meadows," which are often categorized as being part of the benthic habitat ("benthic macrophytes"), should not be strictly assigned to either one of the two habitats. Macrophytes play a crucial role in particular in shallow lakes, however, their settlement on lake bottom depends on water transparency (Istvánovics et al, 2008;Jůza et el., 2019;Chorus et al, 2020;Dubey et al, 2021;Zhang et al, 2022). Therefore, macrophyte meadows are not obligate habitats such as the benthic and the pelagic zone in shallow lakes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The macrophyte development is mainly controlled by underwater light climate (Istvánovics et al, 2008;Jůza et al, 2019;Baart et al, 2010;Dubey et al, 2021;Zhu et al, 2021). Therefore, in the present study about the emergence of macrophytes and benthic-pelagic coupling, we focus on light availability along the benthic and pelagic habitat.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Macrophyte habitat architecture and benthic-pelagic coupling: Photic habitat demand to build up large P storage capacity and bio-surface by underwater vegetation

Teubner

Pall³

et al. 2022

Front. Environ. Sci.

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Macrophytes play an important role in shallow lakes if large standing crop can be achieved. Here we stress the role of submerged macrophytes for benthic-pelagic coupling in the shallow oxbow lake Alte Donau (Austria) during restoration triggered by sufficient light availability (12% surface ambient light, photic>12% depth, zoptimum) in both, the benthic and the pelagic habitat. Focusing on zoptimum, rather than on minimum light requirement (euphotic depth), seemed to be more meaningful to follow the macrophyte development. After phosphate precipitation treatment, the photic>12% pelagic habitat accounted for more than half of the total water volume in summer, while the achievement of the same photic>12% conditions for half of the total sediment surface area was delayed by 8 years. A delay of light exposure on the lake bottom area compared to the lake water volume is given by the basin morphometry, but the time span that is required for passing this delay depends on the efficiency of restoration measures. The 8-year delay for Alte Donau means that lake restoration focusing on macrophyte re-establishment was difficult to stimulate due to insufficient light exposure at the lake bottom. A further increase of photic>12% conditions to more than 3/4 size of both pelagic and benthic habitat, however, eventually stimulated sustained macrophyte growth. With the onset of this large macrophyte biomass yield, the phosphorus storage pool of submerged macrophytes exceeded the annual peak concentration of total phosphorus of the whole lake water by about one order of magnitude for the first time. Further, the submerged macrophyte bio-surface exceeded the size of lake bottom surface, also by about one order of magnitude. Our results support that macrophytes can act as a significant sink of phosphorus by retaining this nutrient at least during the growing season. We further see the immensely large macrophyte bio-surface as a vast spatial dimension for an additional habitat for freshwater biota. Therefore, we conclude that mature submerged macrophyte formations need to be considered not only as biomass yield, but create a unique macrophyte habitat architecture as a third main component in the network between benthic (lake bottom) and pelagic (lake water) habitat.

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