| Aquatic plants help lakes in many ways. There are 150 different species of plants in Minnesota lakes. They are divided into four classes: Emergent, submerged, floating-leaf, and free-floating. Aquatic plants are extremely beneficial to lakes. Areas with aquatic plants produce more food sources for fish; such as snails and larvae. They offer shelter for fish and places for insects to live. Plants also produce oxygen and absorb runoff such as nitrogen and phosphorus. Emergent plants protect the shorelines by stabilizing sediments. Some types of emergent plants are cattails, bulrush, and swamp loosestrife. Cattails provide cover for many fish and a nesting place for many other animals. They also help prevent shorelines and sediments from running into a lake. Emergent plants can sometimes clog up ditches; but the control of them is limited because of what they do to hold shorelines back from lakes. | Coontails, Canada waterweed, and Stonewart are some of the many types of submerged plants in Minnesota’s lakes. These plants are easily confused with one another. Some of them need to be controlled and some don’t. Native plants such as Potamogeton do not need to be controlled because they are helpful to lakes. Waterliles are probably the best known of all the floating-leaf plants. Waterliles provide excellent cover for game fish. Floating-leaf plants are very beautiful. They have flowers of yellow, purple, and white. The yellow lotus is a protected floating-leaf | plant in Minnesota and cannot be removed. Cow lilies, another type of floating-leaf plant, are found in sheltered, shallow water. They have bright yellow flowers that produce fruit eaten by muskrats and other aquatic animals. There are many types of algae or free-floating plants. Pondscum look like masses of green on top of the water. They provide cover for predators of small fish and other animals. Some types of algae form large colonies that provide food for small fish. Chara is another type that provides shelter for fish, and stabilizes sediments. All of these algae types provide habitats and feed fish, but if they get too dense they will shade out plants below them. To preserve the plants in lakes try not to use weed rollers as much, and conserve onm boat pollution. Even though most people think aquatic plants are a nusince in lakes, they really are very beneficial to the presevation of lakes. |