Hydraulic Phases, Persistent Stratification, and Phytoplankton in a Tropical Floodplain Lake (Mary River, Northern Australia)

Abstract

The Mary River, in the Australian wet/dry tropics, flows seasonally. When the river ceases flowing in the dry season, a series of isolated lakes remain along the river’s main floodplain channel. The limnology of a channel lake, which is 14 km long and 6-9 m deep in the dry season, was examined between April and December 2000. Four hydraulic phases were identified, these being (1) riverine (April), (2) riverine to lake transition (May), (3) lake (June–late-November), and (4) lake to riverine transition (late-November–December). These phases differ with respect to their duration and flow direction from lakes located on tropical floodplains of perennially flowing rivers. Despite the variable hydraulic conditions, the main channel remained thermally stratified, with only infrequent and short-lived deep mixing events, and sufficient light for photosynthesis in the diurnal mixed layer. During the period of isolation and in contrast to floodplain lakes in tropical South America, the depth of the Mary River channel lake always exceeded, by at least 2-fold, the depth of the diurnal mixed layer. The water quality (conductivity, dissolved oxygen, pH, Si and water clarity) and phytoplankton assemblage of the channel lake was primarily driven by its hydraulics, though this was not evident for the channel’s nutrient concentrations. Dissolved oxygen concentrations during lentic conditions were double values during the riverine and transition phases. This was attributed to the cessation of inflowing waters with a high biological oxygen demand, and enhanced photosynthetic activity of higher concentrations of phytoplankton retained under lentic conditions. The channel’s phytoplankton assemblage reflected the channel’s hydraulics, with the most common phytoplankton throughout the study period belonging to functional groups L_o(Peridinium inconspicuum), W1 (euglenoids), W2 (Trachelmonas) and Y (Cryptopmonas, Rhodomonas), with groups A (Acanthoceras) and D (Nitzschia agnita, Synedra alna) prominent during the lentic phase. Despite persistent stratification under lentic conditions, there was no clear evidence of autogenic succession or domination by any single phytoplankton functional group.