[APD] Re: allelopathic thoughts (random)

[Paul Krombholz <krombhol at teclink_net>]

I have seen a number of pictures of plants growing submersed in 
rivers or large streams, and they are usually quite fuzzy with 
attached algae.   If there is some kind of evolutionary race between 
plants to discourage attached algae and algae to overcome the plants' 
defenses, the algae are doing pretty well.  Of course, the plants 
seem to be pretty large and healthy too, just fuzzy-looking.  One 
wonders how bad the algae has to get to cause problems for the plant. 
One wonders if the plants would be doing a lot better if the algae 
were not there.  How close to the edge of surviving/not surviving are 
the plants?  Could they take a worse algae load and still survive? 
These are important questions in ecology that are hard to answer.  If 
any species of submersed aquatic plant had an edge over other species 
in discouraging attached algae, it would look 'cleaner' than others, 
provided that they grew at the same distance from the surface and got 
the same amount of light.  I wonder if alterations in the waxy layer 
of the leaf surface might discourage attachment of algae.  If a plant 
could shed cuticle, that would give it an edge because it could shed 
the attached algae.  The attachment glues of algae would be 
interesting to study.
--
Paul Krombholz in chilly central Mississippi, going down to about 22 F tonight.
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