Ecological relationships of wild rice, <i>Zizania aquatica</i>. 4. Environmental regions within a wild rice lake

Abstract

Four environmental regions with similar characteristics were identified within a lake that had been uniformly seeded with wild rice. Q-type cluster analysis was used to identify the environmental regions and discriminant analysis verified their existence. The regions differed from one another in the amount of plant competition and the phosphorus, zinc, and organic content of the sediment. By superimposing weight per wild rice plant categories with the locations of the environmental regions, it was found that the environmental regions were related to wild rice production. Low weights per wild rice plant were due to low phosphorus levels, low organic content of the sediment, or high plant competition values. Only where these variables were at suitable levels were high weights per wild rice plant obtained.