GROWTH OF FLOATING-LEAVED AND SUBMERGED PLANTS IN ARTIFICIAL CO-CULTURED MICROCOSMS: MORPHOLOGICAL RESPONSES TO VARIOUS WATER FLUCTUATION REGIMES

Abstract

Hydrocharis dubia can alternate between a rooted floating-leaved and a free-floating form, so given increasingly frequent precipitation extremes, it is not expected to be more negatively impacted by rapid water fluctuations than by gradual ones and may adapt water fluctuations by alteration of life forms. However, the opposite may be true for Nymphoides peltata, with only a rooted floating-leaved form. We designed an experiment combining six water depth treatments (constant shallow, constant deep, and two rapidly and two gradually fluctuating treatments) with three speciescombinations (N. peltata–H. dubia, N. peltata– Ceratophyllum demersum, and H. dubia–C. demersum) to investigate plant responses to depth fluctuations and their co-cultured species. The total mass of N. peltata was considerably lower in the rapidly- than in the gradually-fluctuating treatments. However, total mass of H. dubia in the rapidly-fluctuating treatments was similar to or higher than in the gradually-fluctuating ones. Rapid fluctuations had a negative impact on the growth of C. demersum than gradual fluctuating. The floating-leaved species demonstrated divergent adaptive strategies to different water fluctuation patterns. In addition to expanding leaf blades, H. dubia can adapt to changing water depths by changing its life form. However, N. peltata, which mainly relies on morphological plasticity, such as petiole elongation, to adapt to water rise may reduce its abundance in communities subjected to increasingly frequent floods. The growth of submerged C. demersum, either co-occurring with H. dubia or with N. peltata, may be repressed by high flooding rates.