Journal
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
Volume 684, Issue -, Pages 578-586Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.05.267
Keywords
Regime shifts; Morphological traits; Positive feedback; Water clarity; Submerged macrophyte; Shallow lake
Categories
Funding
- Major Science and Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment [2017ZX07203-004]
- Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences [XDB31000000]
- Natural Science Foundation of China [31621091]
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Positive feedbacks are generally related to the interactions between biotic processes and abiotic drivers and may lead to the emergence of alternative stable states in ecosystems. Understanding the mechanisms of self-reinforcing feedbacks in a macrophyte-dominant clear state is critical for lake management. Based on a survey of 35 lakes in the Yangtze River floodplain and canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) with forward selection, the results showed that water clarity is the most limiting factor that influences the community structure and biomass of submerged macrophytes. The canopy length of tall macrophytes (i.e., Myriophyllum spicatum L. and Potamogeton malaianus Miq.) showed positive allometry with plant height, while the canopy length of small mac-rophytes (e.g., Potamogeton maackianus A. Benn.) showed isometry. Our results indicated the existence of positive feedbacks between macrophyte vegetation and water clarity in a more vegetation, higher water clarity pattern. We found that the relationships between monospecific community biomass and water clarity differed among community types, indicating that the strength of the positive feedback was interspecific. Furthermore, we found significant differences in the Secchi depth (SD), chlorophyll a (Chl a), light attenuation coefficient (K) and dissolved oxygen (DO) associated with monospecific macrophyte patches. Plant height had significant relationships with the mean values of SD, Chl a, total phosphorus (TP) and K, suggesting that plant height was one of the mechanisms underlying the positive feedbacks. In management practices, efforts to build and maintain the resilience of an ecosystem should be trait-based rather than merely focusing on vegetation abundance. (C) 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
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