Journal
MARINE AND FRESHWATER RESEARCH
Volume 73, Issue 10, Pages 1196-1211Publisher
CSIRO PUBLISHING
DOI: 10.1071/MF21249
Keywords
diatoms; ecological condition; Gunbower Forest; X-ray fluorescence; XRF; Murray River; palacolimnology; Ramsar wetland; stable isotopes
Funding
- North Central Catchment Management Authority
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Research has found that the wetlands in Gunbower Forest have undergone ecological changes in recent decades, reflecting similar trends to wetlands in the surrounding areas.
Gunbower Forest is bordered by the Murray River and Gunbower Creek and hosts several floodplain wetlands listed under the Ramsar Convention. Sediment cores were retrieved from three wetlands to trace changes to their ecological state over time. The basal sediments of the wetlands date back to the beginning of river regulation in the 1930s, suggesting that only after then were they inundated sufficiently often to allow for net sediment accumulation. The diatoms preserved in the lower levels of all cores suggest clear, freshwater conditions prevailed during that period. Increased sediment and nutrient loads are inferred by increased epiphytic forms and nutrient indicators. Over recent decades the wetlands have transitioned to plankton dominance, reflecting greater connectivity to the river and distributary, and a reduced light environment. This pattern resembles to that recorded both upstream and downstream, suggesting a regionalscale change in the wetlands of the southern Murray-Darling Basin.
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