Size-dependent C, N and P stoichiometry of three submersed macrophytes along water depth gradients

Abstract

Variability in biomass allocation and growth rate of submersed macrophytes along water depth gradients may lead to different carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) stoichiometric characteristics. We conducted a field investigation to evaluate long-term effects of water depth on C, N and P stoichiometry of three submersed macrophytes, Potamogeton maackianus, Myriophyllum spicatum and Ceratophyllum demersum. The results indicated that shoot C:N, C:P and N:P of the plants tended to increase with elevated water depths, and patterns of biomass allocation along water depth gradients were more important than biological dilution of increased growth rates in affecting shoot C:N:P stoichiometric characteristics of the plants. Partial correlation analysis using shoot height and biomass as covariates revealed that water depth significantly affected C:P ratios in shoots of P. maackianus and M. spicatum and C:N ratio in shoots of M. spicatum, but did not affect N:P ratios of all the plants. Shoot stoichiometry of M. spicatum was most sensitive in response to water depth, followed by P. maackianus, and that of C. demersum was really unchanged with elevated water depths. Our results suggested that strategies in biomass allocation in organs, which depend largely on the species identity, rather than growth rates of the plants, contributed mainly to variation in the observed element stoichiometry along the water depth gradients.

Groundwater Depth Affects Phosphorus But Not Carbon and Nitrogen Concentrations of a Desert Phreatophyte in Northwest China

“…The leaf P concentration and the C:P and N:P mass ratios in A. sparsifolia were significantly affected by groundwater depths in both years ( Figure 3 ). This results is similar to previous findings, indicating that the leaf P concentrations and C:P and N:P mass ratios of the submersed macrophytes are affected by increasing groundwater depths ( Li W. et al, 2015 ). The effect of groundwater depth on leaf P concentration is likely attributed to soil and groundwater that serve as the only sources of P absorbed by A. sparsifolia in the current study; thus this phenomenon can be significantly affected by external environments ( Hedin, 2004 ; Rong et al, 2015 ).…”

“…Many studies on ecological stoichiometry have been conducted in the presence of different environmental factors, such as nutrients, light, prescribed burning, and plantation age ( Herbert et al, 2003 ; Striebel et al, 2008 ; Xing et al, 2013 ; Butler et al, 2017 ; Zeng et al, 2017 ). Li W. et al (2013) and Li W. et al (2015) also found that water depth gradients remarkable affected the C, N, and P concentrations and mass ratios of macrophytes in Lake Erhai.…”

Effects of taxonomy, sediment, and water column on C:N:P stoichiometry of submerged macrophytes in Yangtze floodplain shallow lakes, China

“…In water column, our study showed that water depth has a significant negative effect on plant tissue P which is Fig. 3 Variance partitioning based on pRDA analysis for sediment, water column, and taxonomy on tissue C:N:P stoichiometric signatures Table 6 Percentage (100 %) of explained variance based on variance partitioning for C:N:P stoichiometric signatures and for C, N, P, C:N, C:P, and N:P, respectively, in response to sediment, water column, and taxonomy The p values which <0.001 were emphasized in boldface S sediment, W water column, T taxonomy consistent with previous study (Li et al 2015). Indeed, in deep water, most submerged macrophytes tend to allocate more biomass to stem for shoot elongation to alleviate low light availability (Fu et al 2012;Strand and Weisner 2001).…”

The Fight to Capture Light: Functional Diversity Is Related to Aquatic Plant Community Productivity Likely by Enhancing Light Capture

“…3 ) as a carbon source (Lepoint et al, 2004). Leaf C:N ratios were largely affected by species identity, which is accordant to findings by Li et al (2015) that species differences in the allocation of nutrients are likely to be more important for the variability of C:N rather than growth rates of aquatic plants. The marginally non-significant relationship between leaf tissue C:N and productivity indicated that there could have been an underlying role for relative species abundances to affect productivity.…”