• Journal of Wetlands Research
• /
• v.12 no.3
• /
• pp.49-56
• /
• 2010

Euryale ferox is only annual hydrophyte among endangered plants in Korea and its seed is high valuable medicinal material. This studies were carried to find out key factors that made E. ferox endanger in Korea and to apply the results for effective management of the natural wetlands inhabited by E. ferox. We investigated the distributed sites reported by previous studies and classified the distribution-affected factors into three categories, eutrophication(hypothesis 1), soil accumulation(hypothesis 2) and increasing of water level(hypothesis 3) in the habitat. These three hypotheses were tested in the field and explained the results with the morphological characteristics of seed germination stages of E. ferox. The geographical distribution ranges of E. ferox diminished at a rate of $1^{\circ}$ latitude with about 10 natural wetlands for last 30 years. Water eutrophication in the wetland had a positive effect on the establishment of E. ferox. But higher in soil accumulation and water depth, then lower in the establishment rate of E. ferox. These results indicate that water depth in the wetland must be below 50cm during the germination season, especially in May and emergent hydrophytes filter zone is need to protect soil accumulation from soil erosion within its watershed for the effective management of wetland with E. ferox.