Macrobenthic invertebrate responses to prolonged drought in South Africa's largest estuarine lake complex

St Lucia, the largest estuarine lake complex of its type in Africa, is characterised by natural physico-chemical spatial and temporal fluctuations. This estuary functions as an important nursery area making use of a number of different habitat types and associated environmental conditions. The system has been subject to a number of natural episodic events such as cyclonic flooding and cyclical droughts, the most current has persisted since 2001, resulting in almost permanent mouth closure. Furthermore, high levels of evaporation have reduced lake levels and resulted in compartmentalisation of the system for up to several years at a time. St Lucia is sensitive to evaporation and therefore to vast salinity fluctuations and hypersaline conditions. The upper reaches in North Lake are particularly sensitive to drying out and extended hypersaline events. The macrobenthos has been well studied, but no studies have concentrated on the entire system for such an extent of time. Macrobenthic samples were initially collected in 2004, again in 2005 and biannually from 2006 to 2008. This study was part of a larger multidisciplinary programme aimed at determining the effects of long term drought conditions on the ecology of the St Lucia system, and increasing current understanding of the system response to future catastrophic climatic events. Three areas were sampled (North and South Lake and Estuary) at five sites per area, over five years. Data were analysed by representing communities through time series depictions and discriminating sites and sampling periods to test multidimensional relationships. Linkages between biological distribution and selected environmental forcing variables were investigated. The system was found to be highly variable and supporting a large number of different habitats and co-occurring environmental conditions. This variability makes it difficult to discern spatial or temporal patterns in environmental conditions and macrobenthic ecology. However, some level of resilience to wide ranging environmental changes associated with drought is maintained. This study was able to determine that there exists a core of taxa able to persist even under shallow depth conditions and prolonged hypersalinity. These taxa clearly have a self recruiting strategy and are therefore not reliant on mouth opening to re-establish local populations. This finding alone has important bearing for future studies and management of the system under similar adverse conditions.

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