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Advances in the aquatic sciences
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Long-term ecological trends of flow-dependent ecosystems in a major regulated river basin

Matthew J. Colloff A F , Peter Caley B , Neil Saintilan C , Carmel A. Pollino D and Neville D. Crossman E
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A CSIRO Land and Water, GPO Box 1700, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

B CSIRO Biosecurity, GPO Box 664, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

C Department of Environmental Science, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2019, Australia.

D CSIRO Land and Water, GPO Box 1666, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.

E CSIRO Land and Water, PMB 2, Glen Osmond, SA 5064, Australia.

F Corresponding author. Email: matt.colloff@csiro.au

Marine and Freshwater Research 66(11) 957-969 https://doi.org/10.1071/MF14067
Submitted: 8 March 2014  Accepted: 3 February 2015   Published: 27 April 2015

Abstract

The case for restoring water to the environment in the Murray–Darling Basin, Australia, is based mainly on condition assessments, although time series provide valuable information on trends. We assessed trends of 301 ecological time series (mean 23 years, range 1905–2013) in two categories: (1) ‘population’ (abundance, biomass, extent) and (2) ‘non-population’ (condition, occurrence, composition). We analysed trends using log-linear regression, accounting for observation error only, and a state–space model that accounts for observation error and environmental ‘noise’. Of the log-linear series (n = 239), 50 (22%) showed statistically significant decline, but 180 (78%) showed no trend. For state–space series (n = 197) one increased, but others were stable. Distribution of median exponential rates of increase (r) indicated a small but statistically significant declining trend, though 35–39% of the series were positive. Our analysis only partly supports, though does not refute, prevailing assumptions of recent ecological decline in the Murray–Darling Basin. The pattern is of fluctuating stability, with declines during droughts and recovery after flood. The overall trend from our meta-analysis is consistent with a pattern of historical decline to a hybrid ecosystem followed by slow, recent decline for some components and stability for others, with considerable variation in trends of specific ecological components: in short, there are ecological ‘winners’ and ‘losers’.

Additional keywords: ecosystem resilience, environmental condition, environmental flow, freshwater, historical data, meta-analysis, monitoring, population dynamics, state–space model.


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