Relationships between key functional traits of the waterlily Nuphar lutea and wetland nutrient content.

ABSTRACT: Little attention has been paid to how aquatic habitat characteristics affect the traits of plant species. Nuphar lutea (L.) Sm. is a keystone species distributed across temperate regions of Europe, northwest Africa and western Asia. Its apparently low phenotypic variability compared to other aquatic plants led us to test whether the species exhibited significant phenotypic variability and whether trait values correlated to environmental parameters. The hypotheses were that (1) the environmental variation within our set of wetlands (both water and sediment characteristics) led to significant variation among four sets of traits related respectively to growth, reproduction, defence and storage and (2) that nutrient limitation (nitrogen and especially phosphorus) should affect plant tra

SUBMITTER: Henriot CP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6800984 | biostudies-literature | 2019

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature