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Phosphorus removal potential of aquatic macrophytes in a shallow eutrophic system

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Abstract

Aquatic macrophytes in inland lakes provide a wide range of ecosystem services. Management efforts to restore aquatic macrophytes for ecosystem recovery need comprehensive understanding of the interaction between growth and nutrient removal efficiency. In contrasting hydrodynamic environments, we examined the growth and phosphorus accrual of two common submerged (Vallisneria natans) and emergent (Acorus calamus) macrophytes. Both biomass and nutrient storage of two macrophytes were observed with significant increases during the incubation period, suggesting the great potential of selected macrophytes in suppressing eutrophication in shallow lakes. Experimental results showed very opposite impacts of flowing water on two macrophyte types. The flowing water was observed to restrain submerged macrophyte’s growth and nutrient accrual, but oppositely to stimulate the emergent type. Specifically, our study demonstrated an average reduction of 33.7% in individual plant biomass and 11.4% in nutrient inventory of V. natans, but an overall increase of 27.2% in biomass and 50.0% in nutrient inventory for A. calamus in flowing-water environments. We estimated a total removal of 470-ton phosphorus assuming the complete comeback of aquatic macrophytes in Lake Taihu, as much as 22% of the annual external loading. The results from this study could inform management of aquatic macrophytes at local and lake-wide scales.

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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of Jiangsu Province (BK20210953), the Public Scientific Research Institution Foundation of Jiangsu of China (GYYS2021205), Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation of China (LY18D060005), and Scientific Research Fund of the Second Institute of Oceanography, MNR (JG1521).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Environmental Science and Engineering, Suzhou University of Science and Technology, Suzhou, China

    Chunqi Shen

  2. Jiangsu Provincial Academy of Environmental Science, Nanjing, China

    Dan Wu

  3. Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Environmental Engineering, Nanjing, China

    Dan Wu

  4. School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, NY, USA

    Baoshan Chen

  5. Coast Survey Development Lab, National Ocean Service, NOAA, Silver Spring, MD, USA

    Bahram Khazaei

  6. Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science, University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO, USA

    Bahram Khazaei

  7. The Second Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Hangzhou, China

    Chenhua Han

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  1. Chunqi Shen
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Contributions

CS: conceptualization, methodology, data curation, formal analysis, writing original draft. DW: methodology, investigation, funding acquisition. BK: investigation, writing, review and editing. BC: formal analysis, writing, review and editing. CH: resources, writing review and editing, funding acquisition. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Dan Wu.

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Shen, C., Wu, D., Chen, B. et al. Phosphorus removal potential of aquatic macrophytes in a shallow eutrophic system. Hydrobiologia 850, 3935–3948 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05261-z

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10750-023-05261-z

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