Article
Version 1
Preserved in Portico This version is not peer-reviewed
Principal Determinants of Aquatic Macrophyte Communities in Least-Impacted Small Shallow Lakes in France
Version 1
: Received: 22 December 2020 / Approved: 24 December 2020 / Online: 24 December 2020 (12:32:10 CET)
A peer-reviewed article of this Preprint also exists.
Labat, F.; Thiébaut, G.; Piscart, C. Principal Determinants of Aquatic Macrophyte Communities in Least-Impacted Small Shallow Lakes in France. Water 2021, 13, 609. Labat, F.; Thiébaut, G.; Piscart, C. Principal Determinants of Aquatic Macrophyte Communities in Least-Impacted Small Shallow Lakes in France. Water 2021, 13, 609.
Abstract
Small Shallow Lakes (SSL) support exceptionally high and original biodiversity, providing numerous ecosystem services. Their small size makes them especially sensitive to anthropic activities, that causes a shift to dysfunctional turbid states and induces loss of services and biodiversity. In this study we investigated the relationships between environmental factors and macrophyte communities. Macrophytes play a crucial role in maintaining functional clear states. Better understanding factors determining the composition and richness of aquatic plant communities in least-impacted conditions may be useful to protect them. We inventoried macrophyte communities and collected chemical, climatic and morphological data from 89 least-impacted SSL widely distributed in France. SSL were sampled across four climatic ecoregions, various geologies and elevations. Hierarchical cluster analysis showed a clear separation of four macrophyte assemblages strongly associated with mineralisation. Determinant factors identified by db-RDA analysis are, in order of importance, geology, distance from source (DIS, a proxy for connectivity with river hydrosystems), surface area, climate and hydroperiod (water permanency). Surprisingly, at country-wide scale, climate and hydroperiod filter macrophyte composition weakly. Geology and DIS are the major determinants of community composition, whereas surface area determines floristic richness. DIS is identified as determinant in freshwater lentic ecosystems for the first time.
Keywords
wetlands; ponds; alkalinity; geology; distance from source; connectivity; climate; altitude; hydroperiod
Subject
Environmental and Earth Sciences, Atmospheric Science and Meteorology
Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Comments (0)
We encourage comments and feedback from a broad range of readers. See criteria for comments and our Diversity statement.
Leave a public commentSend a private comment to the author(s)
* All users must log in before leaving a comment