The nature of aquatic plant communities often defines
benthic habitat within oligotrophic and mesotrophic lakes
and lake management increasingly recognizes the importance
of maintaining plant diversity in order to sustain biological
diversity and capacity within lakes. We have developed
simple statistical relationships between key physical and vegetation
variables that define the habitat requirements, or
“habitat-templates”, of key vegetation types to facilitate management
of plant communities in New Zealand lakes. Statistical
relationships were derived from two datasets. The first
was a multi-lake dataset to determine the effects of water level
fluctuation and water clarity. The second dataset was from
a comprehensive shoreline survey of Lake Wanaka, which allowed
us to examine within-lake variables such as beach
slope and wave action. Sufficient statistical relationships were
established to develop a habitat template for each of the major
species or assemblages. The relationships suggested that
the extent and diversity of shallow-growing species was related
to a combination of the extent of water level fluctuation
and wave exposure. (PDF contains 9 pages.
