The Importance of Aquatic Plants

Submerged native vascular plants are important in aquatic ecosystems, including streams, rivers and lakes.  These plants provide valuable habitat such as structure within the water column where young organisms can find shelter and escape predation.  Such plants also help purify the water and serve as important  food for waterfowl . Waterfowl and mammals like the muskrat eat both the fruits and vegetation.  In fact, one species of waterfowl known as the canvasback was known to feed so much on eel grass, also known as tape-grass, (Vallisneria americana ) that this duck was given the scientific name Aythya valisineria.

Submerged native vegetation is an indicator of good water quality because  it is generally  healthy and abundant only where water clarity is high. Today,  submerged vegetation covers only a small portion of  its historic acreage, primarily because of nutrient and sediment pollution.

Real long-term improvement in submerged plant populations depends directly on efforts to reduce excess nutrients and sediments. We must protect remaining  aquatic beds and improve water quality by reducing polluted runoff. This will help  plants spread naturally and enhance efforts to restore aquatic plants where they historically grew. A good place to see submerged native aquatic vegetation is while canoeing the middle Allegheny River in the area of Warren, Forest and Venango counties.

Today's photo of stream vegetation in the Youghiogheny River at Ohiopyle are from the WPC Resource Conservation archives.

Reference: Chesapeake Bay Foundation.

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