How do freshwater pond plants keep from freezing in the winter and how do they prevent rotting?
Most ponds are deep enough so that the water does not freeze all the way to the bottom of the pond. So plants below the ice layer (i.e. most of the plants) will not be in water that freezes. I’m not quite sure about the “rotting” part of your question. It seems unrelated to the first part. But, excessive nutrient input into a pond can cause a process called eutrophication. This is basically excessive plant growth. The dying plant growth eventually sinks to the lower water layers where normally it would be broken down by lower organisms such as bacteria. Nevertheless, this breakdown of biological matter requires oxygen (O2). The lower layers are, of course, not in contact with the atmosphere so if there is excess organic matter down there the O2 can easily used up making these lower layers anaerobic. When this happens organic muck accumulates in the sediment and the depth of the lake can certainly decrease over time. This usually is associated with a significant decrease in water qualit
