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Initial decomposition of floating leaf blades of waterlilies: causes, damage types and impacts.

ABSTRACT: The initial decomposition of large floating-leaved macrophytes, such as waterlilies, can be studied by following changes in leaf damage and area loss of leaf blades tagged in their natural environment. This approach was taken in the present study to examine the initial decomposition patterns of floating leaf blades of Nuphar lutea (L.) Sm., Nymphaea alba L. and Nymphaea candida C. Presl at three freshwater sites differing in nutrient status, alkalinity and pH. Floating leaf blades of the three plant species were tagged and numbered within established replicate plots and the leaf length, percentages and types of damage and decay of all tagged leaves were recorded weekly during the growing season. Microbial decay, infection by phytopathogenic fungi (Colletotrichum nymphaeae) and oomycetes (Pythium sp.), consumption by pond snails, and mechanical factors were the most important causes of leaf damage. Several types of succession comprising different causes of damage were distinguished during the season. For example, young floating leaves are affected by more or less specialized invertebrate species consuming leaf tissue, followed by non-specialized invertebrate species feeding on the damaged floating leaves. In the two investigated hardwater lakes the seasonal patterns of initial decomposition differed between Nymphaea and Nuphar.

SUBMITTER: Klok PF

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6590448 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Initial decomposition of floating leaf blades of waterlilies: causes, damage types and impacts.

Klok Peter F PF van der Velde Gerard G

PeerJ 20190621

The initial decomposition of large floating-leaved macrophytes, such as waterlilies, can be studied by following changes in leaf damage and area loss of leaf blades tagged in their natural environment. This approach was taken in the present study to examine the initial decomposition patterns of floating leaf blades of Nuphar lutea (L.) Sm., Nymphaea alba L. and Nymphaea candida C. Presl at three freshwater sites differing in nutrient status, alkalinity and pH. Floating leaf ...[more]

PMID: 31275754

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Project description:Wintering Sasa senanensis, dwarf bamboo, is known to employ deep supercooling as the mechanism of cold hardiness in most of its tissues from leaves to rhizomes. The breakdown of supercooling in leaf blades has been shown to proceed in a random and scattered manner with a small piece of tissue surrounded by longitudinal and transverse veins serving as the unit of freezing. The unique cold hardiness mechanism of this plant was further characterized using current year leaf blades. Cold hardiness levels (LT20: the lethal temperature at which 20% of the leaf blades are injured) seasonally increased from August (-11°C) to December (-20°C). This coincided with the increases in supercooling capability of the leaf blades as expressed by the initiation temperature of low temperature exotherms (LTE) detected in differential thermal analyses (DTA). When leaf blades were stored at -5°C for 1-14 days, there was no nucleation of the supercooled tissue units either in summer or winter. However, only summer leaf blades suffered significant injury after prolonged supercooling of the tissue units. This may be a novel type of low temperature-induced injury in supercooled state at subfreezing temperatures. When winter leaf blades were maintained at the threshold temperature (-20°C), a longer storage period (1-7 days) increased lethal freezing of the supercooled tissue units. Within a wintering shoot, the second or third leaf blade from the top was most cold hardy and leaf blades at lower positions tended to suffer more injury due to lethal freezing of the supercooled units. LTE were shifted to higher temperatures (2-5°C) after a lethal freeze-thaw cycle. The results demonstrate that the tissue unit compartmentalized with longitudinal and transverse veins serves as the unit of supercooling and temperature- and time-dependent freezing of the units is lethal both in laboratory freeze tests and in the field. To establish such supercooling in the unit, structural ice barriers such as development of sclerenchyma and biochemical mechanisms to increase the stability of supercooling are considered important. These mechanisms are discussed in regard to ecological and physiological significance in winter survival.

Dataset Information

Initial decomposition of floating leaf blades of waterlilies: causes, damage types and impacts.

Publications

Initial decomposition of floating leaf blades of waterlilies: causes, damage types and impacts.

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