5.3: River-floodplain food web subsidies

Leader:

Stuart Bunn

Abstract

As the wet season flows overtop river banks, fish and other animals make the most of expanded feeding grounds, moving out onto the floodplains. As the floodwaters recede, these animals take the nutrients and energy obtained from the floodplain, back to the river channel. This project will describe floodplain food webs, quantify the contribution of subsidies to, and from the floodplain, and determine how some current land management practices are affecting the floodplain food webs of northern rivers.

Outcomes

This research will provide a framework for explaining and predicting why river and floodplain ecosystems may change in response to pressures such as future development or global climate change.

Commercial and recreational fisherman will benefit from an improved understanding of the implications of nutrient and energy movement between rivers and floodplains for fish production. Likewise, pastoralists will be in a better position to understand how a change in river-floodplain connection might affect the productivity of floodplain grazing lands. And Indigenous communities will gain new insight into how valued species of fish, waterbirds and turtle will be affected by land use changes or weed invasion.

Where is the research happening?

A primary focus for the project will be the Mitchell River floodplain in Queensland. Some components of the project will also take place in the Daly River floodplain in the Northern Territory.

Who's involved

The project is led by Professor Stuart Bunn (Griffith University) along with researchers from Griffith University, Charles Darwin University, Environmental Research Institute of the Supervising Scientist, University of Western Australia and CSIRO.