Lake Victoria
East Africa
Introduce aspects of the
ecology and management
of Lake Victoria with
special emphasis on
changes in its endemic
fish fauna.
Mean depth = 40m
Maximum depth = 79m
Surface area = 68,000 km2
Altitude = 1,134m
Shoreline development index = 3.7
Basin size = 263,000 km2
Population = 27.7 million
Start of the rainy season (cool/windy)
Lake Victoria – water hyacinth
Eichhornia crassipes
Lake Victoria
– papyrus
Cyperus
papyrus
Source: Bootsma and Hecky 1993
Core taken in 1996 from a depth of 68m
Discontinuity 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
Source: Verschuren et al. 2002. History and timing of human impact on lake Victoria.
Proc. Royal Society London 269: 289-294
Microcystis
Cyanobacteria bloom
Anabaena
Haplochromine cichlids
[Haplochromids in black]
Lake Victoria food web prior to the introduction of the Nile perch
Lake Victoria food web
following the introduction
of the Nile perch
Witte et al.
1992
Witte et al.
1992
Goudswaard et al. 2008