Adaptation to water level variation: Responses of a floating-leaved macrophyte Nymphoides peltata to terrestrial habitats

¹ The State Field Station of Freshwater Ecosystems of Liangzi Lake, Wuhan University, Wuhan, P.R. China
² Faculty of Resources and Environment, Hubei University, Wuhan, P.R. China
³ Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology of China, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan, P.R. China

^* Corresponding author: Lizhq@whu.edu.cn

Received: 4 May 2010
Accepted: 24 September 2010

Abstract

A straightforward experimental approach was carried out to study the adaptation responses of a typical floating-leaved aquatic plant Nymphoides peltata to changes in water availability. N. peltata grown in terrestrial habitat was approximately 88.77% lower in total biomass, 62.75% higher in root biomass allocation, 80.9% higher in root-shoot ratio, and 54.5% longer in leaf longevity compared with N. peltata grown in aquatic habitats. Anatomical analyses suggest that aquatic-grown N. peltata exhibits a well-developed lacunal system in leaf, petiole, and coarse root. Moreover, aquatic-grown N. peltata had approximately a higher in lacunal system in leaf, petiole, and coarse root by 28.57%, 56.41% and 82.35%, respectively, than those of terrestrial-grown N. peltata. These results indicated that N. peltata was well adapted to the terrestrial habitat because of its biomass allocation, morphological, and anatomical strategies that depended on the increase in root biomass allocation and leaf longevity, as well as the decrease in the lacunal system volume in leaf, petiole, and coarse root. This indicates that N. peltata can develop multiple morphological and anatomical strategies, an integrated approach to enhance survival in dynamic and unpredictable environments.