Estudio demográfico del lirio acuático Eichhormia crassipes (Mart) Solms:: Dinámica de crecimiento en dos localidades selectas de México

The amount of information concerning the water-hyacinth grew in an explosive way during recent years due to its potential damaging or benefic effect on the environment, nevertheless the study of the population ecology of this plant has been neglected till now. In particular, the behavior of clonal populations in natural conditions. As a contribution to the understanding of the factors that regulate the structure of populations of Eichhomia crassipes in relation with its modular organization, we describe here the growth dynamics of the plants in two selected water bodies of Mexico. In contrast with the fast growth shown by populations living in euthrophicated environments, the production of growth units (ramets) by the plants is strongly limitated by an ecologicaly diverse environment but the phenotipic plasticity increases mainly in the vegetative and reproductive behavior.