The Wonderful Worlds of Waterlilies

By Anonymous -

 One of the simple pleasures in life is sitting on a dock looking out at a still lake. The breeze is gentle, and the midges make it look like it’s raining on a clear day. You can watch the fish as they flash just below the surface. But my favorite part has always been to look out at the lily pads. 


Water lilies are an interesting plant. Their roots require oxygen, but the substrates that the plants are found in are anaerobic or very low oxygen. The clever plant gets around this by pumping two liters of oxygen from the surface down to the roots using a special conducting tissue called aerenchyma and the heat from the sun. This is a widespread adaptation for aquatic plants in this position, as it allows for a low-resistance pathway for gases. 


Aerenchyma of an aquatic plant; picture credit to Wikipedia


Our canoe adventure at Lost Lake let me paddle out to these lovely plants and really get a good look at them. I observed the lily pads at this lake are yellow water-lilies (Nuphar lutea), a common perennial species with a broad range. However, it wasn’t just the lovely blooms that caught my attention. There is a stunning amount of life that a single lily pad can support, hidden from view from the shore. 


Yellow waterlilies (Nuphar lutea); photo credit to NatureSpot UK

Aphids, a familiar insect from the order Hemiptera feed on these plants using their piercing mouthparts. They seem to be indiscriminate in their consumption of the plant (Waterlilies 2011).


An insect that we may be less familiar with, though, is the waterlily beetle. The female will lay her eggs on the surface of the plant and the larvae will emerge and feed on the lily pad. These beetles will also overwinter in the dead leaves of the water lilies (Waterlilies 2011). 


Several species of moth, (one of which is the China-mark moth) will lay its eggs on the underside of the lily pad. When the caterpillars hatch, they poke holes up into the leaf to get oxygen. Once they are older, the caterpillars will both feed on the plant and cut pieces off of it to cover themselves and hide from predators, similar to the way caddisfly larvae construct their ‘shells’ (Waterlilies 2011). The caterpillars are rather unusual in that they live underwater. The ‘shell’ they make using the leaf allows them to have a bubble of air around them at all times. This shields them from predation since they are eating from the safety of the ventral side of the leaf and are hidden from visual predators. The adult moths only live for a short time, but they can lay up to 900 eggs on the underside of the lilypad. 


The false leafminer may also call the yellow waterlily home. This is a kind of midge that eats the leaf in jagged mazes like true leafminers do, however, they eat from the surface of the plant, rather than inside of it. Leafminers bore through the internal layers of the leaves, using them as protection since visual predators cannot easily get at them through the leaf. The trails are serpentine and easily recognizable. 


Beyond the pest insects, by flipping over a lilypad, you can find a veritable wealth of life. Snails and mites and rotifers often call the underside home. You can also find caddisfly larvae and whirligig beetles hiding out from visual predators. These lovely waterlilies are entire floating worlds. 


So next time you go to a lake, flip over a lily pad and see what you can find.


If you’re interested in reading more about the ecology of waterlilies and their herbivory, you can go here. 


Hyperlinks/Citations in order:

https://pfaf.org/user/plant.aspx?latinname=Nuphar+lutea\

https://www.trianglegardener.com/waterlilies-in-distress/ (Waterlilies 2011)

https://www.lifeinfreshwater.org.uk/species%20pages/chinamarkmoth.jpg.html

https://uconnladybug.wordpress.com/2014/06/04/pond-lily-leaf-miners/

https://vtecostudies.org/blog/a-water-lilys-world/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerenchyma


Pictures in order:

https://www.naturespot.org.uk/species/yellow-water-lily

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerenchyma

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