Issue |
Knowl. Manag. Aquat. Ecosyst.
Number 425, 2024
Management of habitats and populations/communities
|
|
---|---|---|
Article Number | 4 | |
Number of page(s) | 9 | |
DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/kmae/2024001 | |
Published online | 26 February 2024 |
Research Paper
Evaluating the suppression of Hydrilla verticillata by manual removal and planting natives for small-scale restoration efforts in a spring-fed river
1
University of Texas at San Antonio, One UTSA Circle, College of Science, Department of Integrated Biology, San Antonio, TX, 78249, USA
2
Terracon, 2015 Newpoint Place, Suite 600, Lawrenceville, GA, 30043, USA
* Corresponding author: jeffrey.hutchinson@utsa.edu
Received:
19
September
2023
Accepted:
23
January
2024
Hydrilla (Hydrilla verticillata) is an invasive aquatic macrophyte found on every continent except Antarctica. Due to the high number of federally listed species in the San Marcos River, Texas, management options for hydrilla are limited. We examined the ability of the two native macrophytes to suppress hydrilla in plots where 0 to 100% hydrilla was removed. In plots where 100% hydrilla was removed, Texas wild rice exhibited equal or greater coverage to hydrilla. Hydrilla was present in 100% of the plots at the end of the study, regardless of percent removal, while Texas wild rice (Zizania texana) and water stargrass (Heteranthera dubia) were present in 50 and 42% of the plots, respectively. While the overall survival percentage in plots was 50% for Texas wild rice, the mean root and shoot dry weights were significantly greater than hydrilla which occurred in all plots. However, hydrilla coverage was among the highest in plots where 100% of the hydrilla was removed at the start of the study, indicating its ability to quickly invade disturbed sites. The study results indicate morphological differences with hydrilla allocating greater biomass into its shoots while Texas wild rice allocates equal amounts of biomass into its shoots and roots.
Key words: Hydrilla / Texas wild rice / manual removal / replanting / cover
© A. Maroti and J.T. Hutchinson, Published by EDP Sciences 2024
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License CC-BY-ND (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you may not distribute the modified material.
Current usage metrics show cumulative count of Article Views (full-text article views including HTML views, PDF and ePub downloads, according to the available data) and Abstracts Views on Vision4Press platform.
Data correspond to usage on the plateform after 2015. The current usage metrics is available 48-96 hours after online publication and is updated daily on week days.
Initial download of the metrics may take a while.