Abstract
Little is known about how community composition affects vertical patterns of leaf characteristics for submerged macrophytes in freshwater lakes. Here, after sampling Hydrilla verticillata in both single and mixed communities in shallow and deep areas in a shallow lake, we measured vertical patterns of leaf biofilm and physiology characteristics. Upper leaves of H. verticillata always had more attached abiotic biofilm matters, and all biofilm characteristics exhibited declining trends from top to bottom segments in deep areas. Moreover, the amount of attached biofilm matter in the mixed community was less than in the single community in shallow areas, but the reverse was true in deep areas. The vertical pattern of leaf physiology characteristics was obvious in the mixed community. In the shallow area, leaf pigment concentrations showed increasing trends with an increasing water depth, but the enzymatic specific activity of peroxidase (POD-ESA) was precisely the opposite. In the deep area, leaf chlorophyll concentrations were greatest in the leaves of bottom segments and lowest in top segments, while carotenoids and POD-ESA were greatest in the leaves of the middle segment-II. Light intensity and biofilm were found to play an important role in regulating the vertical patterns of photosynthetic pigments and POD-ESA. Our study highlighted the effect of community composition on the vertical pattern of leaf physiology and biofilm characteristics.
Highlights
Biofilm characteristics always showed increasing trends with increasing water depth.
Community composition changed the amount of attached biofilm matter.
The vertical pattern of leaf physiology was more obvious in mixed communities.
Light intensity and biofilm regulated the vertical pattern of leaf physiology.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Key Research and Development Program (2022YFC3204302), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41971043), the Major Science and Technology Program for the Water Pollution Control and Treatment (2017ZX07203-003), the Cooperation and Guidance Project of Prospering Inner Mongolia through Science and Technology (2021CG0037), and the Research Fund of Nanjing Hydraulic Research Institute (Y221011).
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The manuscript was reviewed and approved for publication by all authors. ZXH and LYJ conceived and designed the experiments. WYP, XXG, ZSY, and GZM performed the experiments. WYP, XXG, ZSY, YQ, and ZLQ analyzed the data. WYP wrote the paper. ZXH, LYJ, and WGX reviewed and revised the paper.
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Wang, Y., Xu, X., Zhang, S. et al. Vertical patterns of leaf physiology and biofilm characteristics for Hydrilla verticillata in both single and mixed communities. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 59802–59812 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26473-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-023-26473-9