Loss of weight and concentration of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus during decomposition of Eichhornia azurea in the floodplain of the upper Paraná river, Brazil

• Autor(a) principal: PAGIORO,T. A.
• Data de Publicação: 1998
• Outros Autores: THOMAZ,S. M.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Revista Brasileira de Biologia (Online)
• Texto Completo: http://old.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0034-71081998000400007
• topic: Eichhornia azurea; decomposition; floodplain; Paraná river

Leaf packs of the aquatic macrophyte Eichhornia azurea were used to experimentally evaluate changes in mass, carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus concentrations, and C:N ratios during initial stages of decomposition in two different environments, the Paraná River and Garças Lake. Analysis of weight loss showed relatively slow decomposition rates in both environments (0.0047 d-1 and 0.0048 d-1 respectively). Over a 45-day period we observed significant changes (p < 0.05) in concentrations of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus, but only carbon differed between the environments (F = 10.479; p = 0.03). Therefore we concluded that detritus behaved similarly during decomposition, since intrinsic characteristics of the environments affected only the carbon concentrations.