title: Linking carbon and nitrogen metabolism to depth distribution of submersed macrophytes using high ammonium dosing tests and a lake survey.
abstract: Strategies of carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) utilisation are among the factors determining plant distribution. It has been argued that submersed macrophytes adapted to lower light environments are more efficient in maintaining C metabolic homeostasis due to their conservative C strategy and ability to balance C shortage. We studied how depth distributions of 12 submersed macrophytes in Lake Erhai, China, were linked to their C-N metabolic strategies when facing acute [Formula: see text] dosing.[Formula: see text] dosing changed C-N metabolism significantly by decreasing the soluble carbohydrate (SC) content and increasing the [Formula: see text]-N and free amino acid (FAA) content of plant tissues.The proportional changes in SC contents in the leaves and FAA contents in the stems induced by [Formula: see text] dosing were closely correlated (positive for SC and negative for FAA) with the colonising water depths of the plants in Lake Erhai, the plants adapted to lower light regimes being more efficient in maintaining SC and FAA homeostasis.These results indicate that conservative carbohydrate metabolism of submersed macrophytes allowed the plants to colonise greater water depths in eutrophic lakes, where low light availability in the water column diminishes carbohydrate production by the plants.
authors: Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan, China ; The University of Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China.
authors: Guixiang
authors: G
authors: Yuan
authors: Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan, China ; Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University Silkeborg, Denmark.
authors: Te
authors: T
authors: Cao
authors: Jiangxi Institute of Water Sciences Nanchang, China.
authors: Hui
authors: H
authors: Fu
authors: Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan, China.
authors: Leyi
authors: L
authors: Ni
authors: Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan, China.
authors: Xiaolin
authors: X
authors: Zhang
authors: Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan, China.
authors: Wei
authors: W
authors: Li
authors: Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan, China.
authors: Xin
authors: X
authors: Song
authors: Donghu Experimental Station of Lake Ecosystems, State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, The Chinese Academy of Sciences Wuhan, China.
authors: Ping
authors: P
authors: Xie
authors: Department of Bioscience, Aarhus University Silkeborg, Denmark ; Sino-Danish Centre for Education and Research Beijing, China.
authors: Erik
authors: E
authors: Jeppesen
keywords: dosing; eutrophication; free amino acid; soluble carbohydrate; submersed macrophytes