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Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY V4.0, Open
Journal article
Integration of palaeo-and-modern food webs reveal slow changes in a river floodplain wetland ecosystem
Scientific Reports, Vol.10(1), pp.1-13
31/07/2020
PMCID: PMC7395169
PMID: 32737428
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Abstract
Large rivers, including the Murray River system in southeast Australia, are disturbed by many activities. The arrival of European settlers to Australia by the mid-1800s transformed many floodplain wetlands of the lower Murray River system. River impoundment and flow regulation in the late 1800s and, from the 1930s, resulted in species invasion, and elevated nutrient concentrations causing widespread eutrophication. An integrated palaeoecology, and palaeo-and-modern food web approach, incorporating mixing models, was undertaken to reveal changes in a regulated wetland (i.e. Kings Billabong). The lack of preserved sediment suggests the wetland was naturally intermittent before 1890. After this time, when used as a water retention basin, the wetland experienced net sediment accumulation. Subfossil cladocerans, and δ
C of Daphnia, chironomid, and bulk sediment, all reflected an early productive, likely clear water state and shifts in trophic state following river regulation in the 1930s. Food web mixing models, based on δ
C and δ
N in subfossil and modern Daphnia, fish, and submerged and emergent macrophytes, also indicated a shift in the trophic relationships between fish and Daphnia. By the 1970s, a new state was established but a further significant alteration of nitrogen and carbon sources, and trophic interactions, continued through to the early 2000s. A possible switch from Daphnia as a prey of Australian Smelt could have modified the food web of the wetland by c. 2006. The timing of this change corresponded to the expansion of emergent macrophytes possibly due to landscape level disruptions. The evidence of these changes suggests a need for a broader understanding of the evolution of wetlands for the management of floodplains in the region.
Details
- Title
- Integration of palaeo-and-modern food webs reveal slow changes in a river floodplain wetland ecosystem
- Creators
- Giri R Kattel - Federation UniversityBradley D Eyre - Centre for Coastal Biogeochemistry, School of Environmental Science and Engineering, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW, 2480, AustraliaPeter A Gell - School of Sciences, Psychology and Sport, Federation University Australia, Mt. Helen, VIC, 3350, Australia
- Publication Details
- Scientific Reports, Vol.10(1), pp.1-13
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group; England
- Grant note
- GRK acknowledges various grants, institutions and individuals. In Australia, the AINSE (AINSEGRA #11087), and the CRN (#160186, #160157) grants are acknowledged. Iain Ellis at the Murray Darling Freshwater Research Centre, the University of Melbourne’s Geochemistry Lab, Matheus Carvalho at the Stable Isotope Laboratory of the Centre for Coastal Biogeochemistry of Southern Cross University, and the SINLAB, University of New Brunswick (Canada) assisted for field and laboratory works. Dating was carried out at ANSTO. In China, the CAS-PIFI (CAS #2016VEA050) and NSFC (#41530753, #41272379) grants in Nanjing and the National Key Research (#2016YFC0402900, #2016YFE0201900) grants at Tsinghua University (Beijing) are acknowledged. BDE acknowledges ARC Grants (#DP0878683, #DP160100248, #LE0668495).
- Identifiers
- 991012925056902368
- Copyright
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2020
- Academic Unit
- School of Environment, Science and Engineering; Centre for Coastal Biogeochemistry; Faculty of Science and Engineering; Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article