Species traits of plants in new Danish lakes. Short review.
Insectivore birds and waders rapidly appear in newly established Danish lakes before dense populations of tall emergent plants on the shores and fish in the water become established and reduce their food availability. But what is the successional development of submerged plants? Broad-scale analyses show that plants species richness increases during the first 10 years in new Danish lakes and later declines when lakes grow older than about 20 years. Some species immigrate early, while other species immigrate late and are mainly restricted to natural lakes. Early immigrants tend to have smaller leaves, seeds and more vegetative propagules (short shoots and turions) than late immigrants.
Early immigrants also tend to grow faster which should permit them to form a dense vegetation cover within few years. We review the morphological and biological traits as well as the ecological success characterizing early successional and late successional submerged plant species in lakes.