Published in Scientific Papers. Series B, Horticulture, Vol. LXVIII, Issue 1
Written by Daniel RĂDUȚOIU
Elodea nuttallii (Planch.) H. St John is a native taxon from North America, which is increasingly widespread in Oltenia, in recent years. It has been known in the flora of Romania since 1993. At the European level, it is on the list of invasive species of interest for the EU. In Oltenia, it prefers aquatic habitats with stagnant or smoothly flowing water. However, it grows in very good conditions and in cloudy waters, where very little light penetrates, a fact that gave this species an advantage compared to the plants it coexists with, greatly reducing their number. Following the research carried out by us, we noticed that in some aquatic habitats in Oltenia this plant registers low dominance abundance indices, but in others it builds up monodominant plant communities or with very few other vascular species, which causes biodiversity to decrease in these places very much. Among the aquatic habitats affected by the presence of the species Elodea nuttallii we mention: 3150 Natural eutrophic lakes with Magnopotamion or Hydrocharition-type vegetation and 3160 Natural dystrophic lakes and ponds.
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