Summary
Comparisons of a wetland coenocline before and after a drought-caused drawdown and the refilling of the basin to a higher-than-normal water level revealed that there was little difference in the above ground standing crop or in the floristic composition of the submersed, emergent or meadow zones along the coenocline. However, the position of many species along the coenocline shifted in response to these perturbations.Sagittaria latifolia, Carex spp.,Patamogeton sp. aff.pusillus all were found 2 to 4 m closer to shore.Glyceria grandis is normally found only in the meadow zone; but after the drawdown, it was found along the whole lenght of the coenocline. The drawdown also nearly eliminatedCeratophyllum demersum from the coenocline. Species richness as a result of these perturbations increased in the submersed (3.3 to 5.9) and emergent (3.6 to 4.3) zones, but decreased in the meadow zone (7.6 to 6.0). The Simpson's index in all three zones was not appreciably influenced by the perturbations. The average Simpson's indices for the meadow, emergent and submersed zones were 0.4, 0.7 and 0.5 respectively.
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Vascular plant nomenclature: Gleason, H.A. & A. Cronquist. 1963. Manual of Vascular Plants of Northeastern United States and Adjacent Canada. Van Nostrand, New York. 810 pp.
Charophyte nomenclature: Crum, G.H. 1975. Distribution, taxonomy, and ecology of charophytes in Iowa. Ph.D. thesis. Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa. 152 pp.
We would like to thank the Nature Conservancy for permission to work on the Freda Haffner Preserve; Dr. R.V. Bovbjerg for encouraging us to undertake this study and for making available unpublished data collected by his students; and Drs. D.C. Glenn-Lewin and R.Q. Landers for reviewing the manuscript. The field sampling in 1973 was done by Dean Martin and Glen Kühl. We would also like to thank Dr. William J. Platt for providing us space in his laboratory during the 1975 sampling. Support for this study came in part from an Iowa State Research Initiation Grant (NSF-GU-3373) to the senior author.
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Van der Valk, A.G., Davis, C.B. Changes in the composition, structure, and production of plant communities along a perturbed wetland coenocline. Plant Ecol 32, 87–96 (1976). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02111903
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02111903