Recent research in the African Great Lakes: fisheries, biodiversity and cichlid evolution

The East African Great Lakes are now well known for (1) their fisheries, of vital importance for their rapidly rising riparian human populations, and (2) as biodiversity hotspots with spectacular endemic faunas, of which the flocks of cichlid fishes unique to each of the three largest lakes, Tanganyika, Malawi and Victoria, offer unique opportunities to investigate how new species evolve and coexist. Since the early 1990s research involving over a hundred scientists, financed by many international bodies, has produced numerous reports and publications in widely scattered journals. This article summarizes their main discoveries and examines the status of, and prospects for, the fisheries, as well as current ideas on how their rich endemic fish faunas have evolved. It first considers fisheries projects in each of the three lakes: the deep rift valley lakes Tanganyika and Malawi and the huge Victoria, all of which share their waters between several East African countries. Secondly it considers the biodiversity surveys of each lake, based on underwater (SCUBA) observations of fish ecology and behaviour which have revealed threats to their fish faunas, and considers what conservation measures are needed. Thirdly, using the lakes as laboratories, what have the international investigations (including DNA techniques and follow-up aquarium experiments) now revealed about the origins and relationships of their cichlid species flocks and mechanisms of evolution?

Increase in fish production achieved by stocking exotic species (Lake Kyoga, Uganda)

The Lake Kyoga complex lies towards the north of Uganda, at 311 altitude of 3,400 feet, between 10 and 2° north of the Equator. The lake is extremely elongate and digitate, shallow (1 metre-7 metres), and almost all the coast-line is swampy, with many papyrus beds. Floating islands of sud are a feature. At its eastern extremity, it breaks up into many swampy, isolated lakes. The Nile from its source at Jinja enters Lake Kyoga on its southern side, and leaves the lake at its western extremity, and winds on through to Lake Albert and the Sudan. The Kyoga/Salisbury /Kwania complex covers 2,354 sq. km. of water. Geologically, the lake is a series of flooded river valleys, probably resulting from the uplifting of the western edge of the basin in the Pliocene and the Pleistocene ages aud the endemic fish fauna is very similar to that of Lake Victoria, although Kyoga has not developed the species flocks of haplochromis which characterise the larger lake. The Victoria fauna extends down-stream of Lake Kyoga to the Murchison Falls on the Nile, which forms an almost complete barrier between Kyoga and the typical nilotic fauna of the Nile below Murchison and Lake Albert.