Ecological Engineering 40 (2012) 113116

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Ecological Engineering
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecoleng

Short communication

Effects of the submerged macrophyte Ceratophyllum demersum L. on restoration

of a eutrophic waterbody and its optimal coverage
Dai Yanran a,b , Jia Chenrong a,b , Liang Wei a, , Hu Shenghua a , Wu Zhenbin a,
a
b

State Key Laboratory of Freshwater Ecology and Biotechnology, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Wuhan 430072, China
Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

a r t i c l e

i n f o

Article history:
Received 31 August 2011
Received in revised form 5 December 2011
Accepted 10 December 2011
Available online 5 January 2012
Keywords:
Ceratophyllum demersum L
Macrophytes restoration
Water quality
Restoration coverage
Eutrophic waterbody

a b s t r a c t
In the paper, submerged macrophyte Ceratophyllum demersum L. was selected, and four simulation systems at 0, 20%, 33% and 50% restoration coverage (COV) were used to evaluate the purication effects of
submerged macrophytes on restoration of a nutrient-polluted waterbody. The results showed that the
water quality was improved signicantly in the presence of C. demersum L. Specically, turbidity and
concentrations of TP, NH4 + -N, Chl.a were reduced by more than 60%. PCA and Pearsons correlation analysis indicated a signicant negative correlation between their reductions and COV of the C. demersum L.
(P < 0.05). ANOVAs and PCCA showed no signicant differences among groups with different COV of C.
demersum L. Based on comprehensive consideration, 20% is probably the optimal restoration coverage
area for C. demersum L. in eutrophic shallow lakes.
2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction
Eutrophication has been a major water quality problem all over
the world. During the past decades, many efforts have been made to
combat with eutrophication of shallow lakes by decreasing external
nutrient loading inputs. However, intense algae blooms still occur
in many lakes because of the high nutrient inputs from point and
nonpoint sources and/or the internal nutrient releasing from polluted sediment. Thus, some in-lakes measures have been taken to
clean the lakes. Among them, macrophytes restoration is a popular
in-lake purication method. The advantages of using macrophytes
are not only that they have tremendous capacity of absorbing nutrients, but also they are economical and eco-friendly.
Unlike rootless plants extracted nutrients only from water,
submerged macrophytes are capable of removing nutrients from
water and sediment. They play a more important role in stabilizing the clear-water state in shallow lakes (Bal et al., 2011; Scheffer
et al., 1993). Since some researchers (Schefeld, 1967; Yount, 1964)
demonstrated the nutrient removal potential of aquatic plants,
numerous studies have been conducted globally to assess the efciency of different macrophytes species on nutrient removal and
the concrete functions in the ecosystem. However, until now the
effects of different levels of macrophyte coverage restoration in

Corresponding authors. Tel.: +86 27 68780045; fax: +86 27 68780675.

E-mail addresses: liangwei02@tsinghua.org.cn (W. Liang),
wuzb@ihb.ac.cn (Z. Wu).
0925-8574/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2011.12.023

a given ecosystem have not been well considered. Although some

reports did provided coverage information (Reynolds, 1994; Meijer
et al., 1999; Norlin et al., 2005; Chen et al., 2009), most of their
work lack systematic research and the conclusions are just about
the relationships between few indexes in the ecosystem and coverage. Thus, to have a better understanding of the restoration, the
appropriate area of a shallow lake needed to restore with submerged macrophytes to maintain clear-water conditions should
be addressed.
The aims of this study are to: (1) examine the critical role of
submerged macrophytes in improving water quality and stabilizing the clear-water state; (2) recognize the correlations between
the environment variables and macrophytes restoration coverage,
and provide some guidance on optimal restoration coverage with
submerged macrophytes in a eutrophic shallow lake to improve
the water quality.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Sediments and overlying water
Donghu Lake (30 33 N, 114 23 E) is on the alluvial plain of
the middle basin of the Yangtze River, on the northeastern outskirts of Wuchang district, Wuhan, China. It is the largest urban
lake in China, which is part of a large drainage system with a
catchment area of 187 km2 . In addition to urban and agricultural
runoffs, it receives part of municipal and industrial wastewater.
The eutrophic water area accounts for 62.21% of its total water

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Y. Dai et al. / Ecological Engineering 40 (2012) 113116

area. The sediment samples used in the static experiments were

collected from the top 010 cm of the sediment in Donghu Lake
in October 2009. The sediments were thoroughly mixed together
prior to experiments. The water used in the experiments was also
taken from Donghu Lake.

In this paper, all the ANOVAs and the Pearsons correlation were
performed with SSPS13.0. For constructing of PCA and PCCA models, the software Statistica 6.0 (Statsoft, 2001) was used.

2.2. Experimental system

3.1. Purication effect for water quality under different COV of C.

demersum L.

Eight concrete ponds (1 m 1 m 1 m) were used in the experiments. A layer of sediment with 25 cm in thickness was placed
in each set, and then lled with water. The content of TN, TP and
OM in the sediment was 1.39 0.21 g/kg DW, 0.95 0.15 g/kg DW
and 60.21 6.32 g/kg DW, respectively. The basic physico-chemical
characteristics of the water for TN, NH4 + -N, TP, COD were
5.94 0.17, 2.49 0.023, 0.44 0.059, 65 9.89 mg/L, respectively.
A small-scale enclosure was set up in the center of each concrete pond except the control, in which no submerged macrophyte
was planted. The enclosures were made up by pontils and shing net with different areas (0.20 m2 /0.33 m2 /0.50 m2 ). They were
used to conne the macrophytes growing in the given regions. In
the experiment, the macrophytes restoration coverage (COV, %)
was calculated. In our experiment, there were four different COV
groups: 20, 33, 50 (the experimental groups) and 0 (the control). A
duplicate was set up for each group.
Submerged macrophytes Ceratophyllum demersum L. was collected in May 2010 from Donghu lake and pre-incubated for 3
weeks. About 0.5 kg fresh weight per square meter were randomly
planted in the enclosure according to their different restoration
areas.
2.3. Sampling and analysis
The study was carried out from 28 June to 27 October in 2010.
Analysis of water samples was performed according to the Standard Method (APHA, 15th edition, 1980). Chemical oxygen demand
(COD) was measured using a spectrophotometer (DRB 200, Hach,
USA). Chlorophyll a (Chl.a) was determined spectrophotometrically. Turbidity was analyzed using a turbidimeter (2100P Hach,
USA). In addition, the other physical and chemical characteristics, including pH and oxidationreduction potential (ORP), were
obtained using the portable Multimeter (Thermo ORION 5-STAR).
2.4. Data analysis
In our study, principal component analysis (PCA) was performed
on all eight ponds and nine environmental variables to detect the
major gradients. The Pearsons correlation coefcients between
restoration coverage and related restoration effects were calculated using the data expressed for PCA.
Differences between groups in terms of the values of environmental variables were evaluated by two-way analysis of variance
(ANOVA) with COV and sampling time as factors. To protect
against experiment-wise error rate, values were adjusted using
the standard Bonferroni correction base on of the number of
ANOVAs conducted within groups (e.g., six compositions between
the groups resulting in = 0.05/6 = 0.008).
The matrix of concentrations of the environmental variables
except COV from all eight ponds was used for Principal Component and Classication Analysis (PCCA) in order to detect groups of
samples with similar patterns. PCCA plots, which provide information about similarities among samples, were used to demonstrate
correlations between the original variables and the rst two factors. The relationships between COV and the other environmental
variables derived from PCCA were determined.

3. Results

As shown in Fig. 1, the water quality in the experimental groups

with different COV of C. demersum L. was improved signicantly.
Compared with the control, the mean concentrations of pollutants
in the experimental groups were reduced in different extent. For
TN, the reduction rates were 35.17% (COV 20), 41.53% (COV 33) and
39.16% (COV 50), respectively (Fig. 1A).
For TP, the reduction rates were 73.33% (COV 20), 63.49% (COV
33) and 67.04% (COV 50), respectively (Fig. 1B). For NH4 + -N, the
reduction rates were 62.81% (COV 20), 64.95% (COV 33) and 55.70%
(COV 50), respectively (Fig. 1C). For COD, the reduction rates were
23.42% (COV 20), 28.07% (COV 33) and 30.83% (COV 50), respectively (Fig. 1D). For Chl.a, the reduction rates were 79.65% (COV
20), 77.53% (COV 33) and 85.71% (50 COV), respectively (Fig. 1E).
For turbidity, the reduction rates were 73.45% (COV 20), 75.43%
(COV 33) and 76.42% (COV 50), respectively (Fig. 1F).
3.2. Relationships between environmental variables and COV of
C. demersum L.
As shown in Fig. 2, the angles between the arrows of COV
and other eight environmental variables in the biplot indicated
that the COV was highly correlated with most of the environmental variables, which was conrmed by the Pearsons correlation
coefcients matrix. Signicantly negative correlations were found
between turbidity, TP, TN, NH4 + -N, Chl.a, COD and COV (P < 0.05).
The concentrations of COD, NH4 + -N, TP, TN, Chl.a, turbidity and ORP in the control were very signicantly higher than
those of experimental groups (P < 0.001), while pH was lower
than those of the experimental groups. Except NH4 + -N, no signicant differences for environmental variances were detected among
all the three experimental groups with different COV (P > 0.008)
(Table 1).
The effects of different COV of C. demersum L. were conrmed
by the results of PCCA. As shown in Fig. 2, dots of the three experimental groups all gathered in region A, while dots of the control
group were in region B.
4. Discussions
Submerged macrophytes, as a key component in the healthy
aquatic ecosystem, play an important role in the remediation
of shallow freshwater lakes (Pan et al., 2011; Scheffer et al.,
1993, 2001; Zhang et al., 2010). In our experiments, it was also
found that C. demersum L. restoration can improve water quality
signicantly. Almost all the pollutant concentrations were significantly lower than those in the control, among them, turbidity
and concentrations of TP, NH4 + -N, Chl.a were reduced by more
than 60%.
The relationships between the environmental variables and COV
indicated that the concentrations of TP, Chl.a, NH4 + -N, COD, TN
and turbidity were signicantly negatively related to COV. These
results support the conclusion of Norlin et al. (2005), who found the
existence of low-chlorophyll concentrations and macrophyte COV
was tightly linked in shallow-water (<2 m deep) wetlands. Such
results also partially align with that of Sndergaard et al. (2010)

Y. Dai et al. / Ecological Engineering 40 (2012) 113116

0.9

6
0%
33%

20%
50%

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

0.5
0.4

0%
33%

0.0

100 110 120 130

110

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

80

COD (mg/L)

1.5
1.0

100 110 120 130

0%
33%

90

2.0

90

100

20%
50%

NH4 -N (mg/L)

0.6

0.1

2.5

20%
50%

70
60
50
40
30

0.5

20
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

10
0

100 110 120 130

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100 110 120 130

55

180
160

0%
33%

140

50

20%
50%

45

0%
33%

40

Turbitidy (NTU)

120
100
80
60

20%
50%

35
30
25
20
15

40

10

20

5
0

0
0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

-5
0

100 110 120 130

10

20

30

40

Sampling Time (d)

50

60

70

80

90

100 110 120 130

Sampling Time (d)

Fig. 1. Temporal concentration of TN, TP, NH4 + -N,COD,Chl.a and turbidity under different COV.

1.2
0%

20%

33%

50%

4
0.8
ORP

COV

TN

0.4

+
NH 4 -N
COD

0.0
Turbidity
pH

-0.4

Factor 2: 19.11%

Factor 2: 20.02%

Chl-a (g/L)

0.2

0.0

20%
50%

0.3

3.0

0%
33%

0.7

TN (mg/L)

0.8

TP (mg/L)

115

B
A
0

Chl.a
TP

-2

-0.8

-1.2

-1.2

-0.8

-0.4

0.0

0.4

Factor 1: 43.31%

0.8

1.2

-4
-6

-3

Factor 1: 43.96%

Fig. 2. PCA/PCCA biplot of factor loadings for each variables of the rst two factor axes.

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Y. Dai et al. / Ecological Engineering 40 (2012) 113116

Table 1
Summary of results of two-way ANOVA analysis of variance on the environmental
variables.
Dependent variables

TN
NH4 + -N
TP
COD
Chl.a
Turbidity
pH
ORP

COV

COV Time

Time

44.373
35.661
164.18
38.26
49.903
62.232
12.798
11.553

<0.001
<0.001
<0.001
<0.001
<0.001
<0.001
<0.001
<0.001

17.858
71.471
5.833
51.038
2.818
6.175
39.412
260.562

<0.001
<0.001
<0.001
<0.001
0.005
<0.001
<0.001
<0.001

3.669

2.882
2.302

<0.001

<0.001
0.002

and Moreno (2010), who concluded that COV was signicantly negatively related to both TP and Chl.a, and the increase in COV at
decreasing TN concentrations was less marked than for TP but no
signicant association between them.
As the water quality was closely related to the COV of macrophytes, there exists a question what is the appropriate coverage in
a shallow lake should be restored with submerged macrophytes
to maintain clear-water condition. Portielje and Van der Molen
(1999) found that in the systems with an area covered with submerged macrophytes above 5%, concentrations of chlorophyll-a
and nutrients were lower than in systems with lower coverage by
monitoring data obtained from 231 freshwater lakes and ponds in
the Netherlands. Through evaluating 18 shallow lakes subjected to
biomanipulation in the Netherlands, Meijer et al. (1999) found a
low algal biomass coincided with macrophytes coverage of more
than 25% of the lake surface area in most clear lakes. Chen et al.
(2009) reported that there were rapid positive effects observed
from 46% plant coverage inside the enclosure. Reynolds (1994)
stated that more than 50% coverage was needed for a successful biomanipulation. While some other scholars held the opinion
that the more submerged macrophytes coverage the better to stabilize clear-water conditions in lake restoration (Jeppesen et al.,
1990; Chen et al., 2009). In our studies, the analysis showed the
differences of water quality were very little and no signicant differences among the experimental groups with COV 20, 33 and
50. These indicated that when the restoration coverage of submerged macrophytes in a shallow lake achieved a certain level,
further increasing COV of submerged macrophytes appeared not
be able to improve water quality. As we all know, economic factor
is often a very important aspect should be considered in practice.
Too much aquatic vegetation in shallow lakes may cause nuisance
for boating, swimming, and other recreational use (Van Nes et al.,
2002), also increase the potential workload for lake management.
Hence, based on the results and comprehensive consideration for
the above factors, we recommend 20% be the optimal coverage for
restoring C. demersum L. in nutrient-polluted shallow lakes.

5. Conclusions
(1) Good purication effects for polluted waterbody are achieved
with 20%, 33% and 50% restoration coverage of C. demersum L.
(2) There are signicantly negative relations between the concentrations of TP, Chl.a, NH4 + -N, COD, TN, turbidity and COV.
(3) 20% is the optimal COV for C. demersum L.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by grants from National Natural Science Foundation of China (51179184), Major Science and
Technology Program for Water Pollution Control and Treatment
(2009ZX07106-003). The authors would like to thank Wang Chuan,
Chang Junjun, and Wu Suqing for their help during the experiment.
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