HR: 08:30h
AN: NB31E-01    [Abstracts]
TI: River and Wetland Food Webs in Australia's Wet-Dry Tropics: General Principles and Implications for Management.
AU: * Douglas, M M
EM: michael.douglas@cdu.edu.au
AF: Charles Darwin University, Tropical Wetlands Group, Darwin, NT 0909 Australia
AU: Bunn, S E
EM: S.Bunn@griffith.edu.au
AF: Centre for Riverine Landscapes, Griffith University, Nathan, Qld 4111 Australia
AU: Davies, P M
EM: pdavies@cyllene.uwa.edu.au
AF: Centre of Excellence in Natural Resource Management, The University of Western Australia, Albany, WA 6330 Australia
AB: The tropical rivers of northern Australia are internationally recognised for their high ecological and cultural values. They have largely unmodified flow regimes and are comparatively free of the impacts associated with intensive land use. However, there is growing demand for agricultural development and existing pressures, such as weeds and feral animals, threaten their ecological integrity. Using the international literature to provide a conceptual framework and drawing on limited published and unpublished data on rivers in northern Australia, we have derived five general principles about food webs and related ecosystem processes that both characterise tropical rivers of northern Australia and have important implications for their management. These are: (1) Seasonal hydrology is a strong driver of ecosystem processes and food web structure; (2) Hydrological connectivity is largely intact and underpins important terrestrial-aquatic food web subsidies; (3) River and wetland food webs are strongly dependent on algal production; (4) A few common macroconsumers species have a strong influence on benthic food webs; (5) Omnivory is widespread and food chains are short. These principles have implications for the management and protection of tropical rivers and wetlands of northern Australia and provide a framework for the formation of testable hypotheses in future research programs.
DE: 1803 Anthropogenic effects
DE: 1821 Floods
DE: 1884 Water supply
DE: 1890 Wetlands
SC: North American Benthological Society [NB]
MN: 2005 Joint Assembly