Lake VictoriaEast Africa

Introduce aspects of the ecology and management of Lake Victoria with special emphasis on changes in its endemic fish fauna.

Mean depth = 40mMaximum depth = 79mSurface area = 68,000 km2

Altitude = 1,134mShoreline development index = 3.7

Basin size = 263,000 km2

Population = 27.7 million

Start of the rainy season (cool/windy)

Lake Victoria – water hyacinthEichhornia crassipes

Lake Victoria – papyrus

Cyperus papyrus

Source: Bootsma and Hecky 1993

Source: Verschuren et al. 2002. History and timing of human impact on lake Victoria.Proc. Royal Society London 269: 289-294

Core taken in 1996 from a depth of 68mDiscontinuity near 25cm depth in the core represents a hiatus of ca. 40 years (stippled zone)

Note: Increasing abundance of diatoms starting in the 1960s but decrease again in the 1980s. Diatoms replace by bloom-forming cyanobacteria

Anabaena

Cyanobacteria bloom

Microcystis

Haplochromine cichlids

Lake Victoria food web prior to the introduction of the Nile perch

[Haplochromids in black]

Lake Victoria food webfollowing the introductionof the Nile perch

Witte et al. 1992

Witte et al. 1992

Goudswaard et al. 2008