Vascular Plants as Engineers of Oxygen in Aquatic Systems

Status of Aquatic Vascular Plants 1n Iowa's Natural Lakes

Plants as ecosystem engineers in subsurface-flow treatment wetlands.

Mass balance performance data from side by side studies of planted and unplanted gravel-bed treatment wetlands with horizontal subsurface-flow are compared. Planted systems showed enhanced nitrogen and initial phosphorus removal, but only small improvements in disinfection, BOD, COD and suspended solids removal. Direct nutrient uptake by plants was insufficient to account for more than a fracti...

A mathematical model of plants as ecosystem engineers.

Understanding the structure and dynamics of plant communities in water-limited systems often calls for the identification of ecosystem engineers--key species that modify the landscape, redistribute resources and facilitate the growth of other species. Shrubs are excellent examples; they self-organize to form patterns of mesic patches which provide habitats for herbaceous species. In this paper ...

Utilization of Aquatic Plants

Ecology is the study of environmental systems, or as it is sometimes called, the economy of nature. "Environmental" usually means relating to the natural, versus human-made world; the "systems" means that ecology is, by its very nature, not interested in just the components of nature individually but especially in how the parts interact. Ecology is technically an academic discipline, such asmat...

Reproductive systems and evolution in vascular plants.

Differences in the frequency with which offspring are produced asexually, through self-fertilization and through sexual outcrossing, are a predominant influence on the genetic structure of plant populations. Selfers and asexuals have fewer genotypes within populations than outcrossers with similar allele frequencies, and more genetic diversity in selfers and asexuals is a result of differences ...