Arrowhead (Sagittaria cuneata) as a bioindicator of nitrogen and phosphorus for prairie streams and wetlands

Katherine M Standen,Joseph M Culp,Patricia A Chambers

doi:10.1007/s11273-017-9576-5

Katherine M Standen, Joseph M Culp + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11273-017-9576-5

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Abstract

The emergent aquatic plant, Sagittaria cuneata, is an easily-identified and commonly-found species in the Great Plains region of North America and has the potential to be a bioindicator of nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) because of its previously-identified leaf plasticity in response to nutrient conditions. To identify associations between leaf morphology and soil and water nutrients, we conducted: (1) a 10-week controlled experiment in which plants were grown in nutrient-enriched sediment, nutrient-enriched water, or unamended control trials, and (2) a field study where emergent leaves were collected from 15 streams of varying nutrient concentrations. Plants grown in experimentally enriched sediment were more productive than those grown in enriched water or control conditions: they produced more emergent leaves and tubers, had a larger final biomass and height, and developed emergent leaves that showed a consistent increase in size and unique change in shape over time. Emergent leaves collected from field plants also showed significant variability of leaf traits; however, this variability occurred at all scales of replication (leaf, plant, quadrat, and site), with linear mixed effects modelling indicating that random chance was likely driving this variability. Although sediment nutrients were crucial to successful growth of S. cuneata under controlled conditions, the high variability in leaf morphology under field conditions (likely due to large natural variability at the species, population, and individual scale) make leaf plasticity of S. cuneata unsuitable as a bioindicator. Our results emphasize the need to quantify within and among plant variation in leaf morphology (and to clarify sampling methods) for the many taxa of aquatic macrophytes that are phenotypically plastic and notoriously difficult to classify.

Highlights

Bioindicators are common species, or groups of species, with identifiable features that exhibit plastic responses along gradients in one or more environmental variables (Holt and Miller 2011)
The aquatic macrophyte genus Sagittaria (Alismataceae) has the potential to be a useful bioindicator of nutrient status because of its identifiable characteristics, known plastic leaf morphology, and occurrence in and tolerance of a range of environmental conditions
The aim of this study was to determine the association between leaf morphology of Sagittaria cuneata (Alismataceae) and nutrients found in both water and sediment as a first step towards development of a bioindicator of ecosystem nutrient status

Summary

Introduction

Bioindicators are common species, or groups of species, with identifiable features that exhibit plastic responses along gradients in one or more environmental variables (Holt and Miller 2011). The benthic macroinvertebrate (BMI) community has been the most commonly used taxa for assessment of water conditions (Hodkinson and Jackson 2005), aquatic macrophytes possess many traits characteristic of bioindicators: they are sessile, sampled and identified to genus (and often species), and respond to environmental stressors (e.g., nutrients, light, substrate texture, etc.) at the individual, population, and assemblage level. The aquatic macrophyte genus Sagittaria (Alismataceae) has the potential to be a useful bioindicator of nutrient status because of its identifiable characteristics, known plastic leaf morphology, and occurrence in and tolerance of a range of environmental conditions. Richards and Ivey (2004) found that S. lancifolia plants grown in a high P solution (1 mM) produced wider emergent

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