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plant species and between seasons.
P. australis
monocultures (AA) and the combination
AB performed better than
P. arundinacea
monoculture (BB) and combination BA,
particularly during winter. In autumn the polycultures (AB, BA) outperformed the
monocultures, and in summer, no differences between treatments were noticed. Average
phosphate removal was higher during summer and autumn (40-70%), when the plants were
active, than in winter (15-50%). During the growing season,
P. arundinacea
monocultures
(BB) showed lower phosphate removal than the rest of the treatments, in which
P. australis
was included
.
Conclusions
So far, in terms of removal efficiency, our results do not seem to support the hypothesis
that plant diversity improves the performance of CWs; monocultures were as efficient as
polycutures for pollutant removal. These preliminary results will be complemented with
statistical analysis and additional analysis of foliar and root N and P content of biomass
collected in the summer of 2013.
Keywords :
P. australis, P. arundinacea
, plant richness
,
removal efficiency, monocultures,
polycultures.
Topic:
Role of plants
References
Vymazal, J and Kropfelova L (2005) Growth of
Phragmites australis
and
Phalaris
arundinacea
in constructed wetlands for wastewater treatmentin the Czech Republic
Ecol
Eng
25 (2005) 606–621
Zhang C.-B., Wang J., a W.L., Zhu S.-X., Liu D., Chang S.X., Chang J., Ge Y(2010)
Effects of plant diversity on nutrient retention and enzyme activities in a full -scale
constructed wetland.
Bioresource Technol
. 101: 1686–1692
