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Fresh findings from around the world, compiled and edited by Kev Warburton, School of Agricultural, Environmental and Veterinary Sciences, Charles Sturt University
About FRN
Freshwater Research News (FRN) is a free newsletter designed to increase understanding of aquatic issues by bringing recently-published research findings to a general audience. FRN draws on articles from over 60 scientific journals to produce brief, easy-to read summaries of the background and significance of freshwater research projects from around the world. The subject range is […]
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Fish morphs: different colours, different behaviours
February 29, 2024
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It’s been shown that natural selection for body colour is often influenced by the conspicuousness of animals against different environmental backgrounds, which can affect mating success, resource competition and predator avoidance. Midas cichlids (Amphilophus spp.) are important evolutionary models because they live in a wide range of Central and South American lake habitats (rock, sand, […]
Offsetting the effects of environmental disturbance
February 29, 2024
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After impact avoidance, harm minimization and rehabilitation / restoration, offsetting is the final step that can be taken to mitigate the effects of human disturbance on the environment. In principle, offsetting aims at no net environmental loss, but in practice it’s often compromised by non-compliance or the scale of the project. Even after appropriate offsets […]
Climate change adaptation by waterbirds
February 29, 2024
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How successful are protected areas at helping ecological communities to adapt to warming climates? Thirty-five biologists from a wide range of European and American institutions recently combined forces to investigate how protected areas affect climate adaptation by waterbird species. They examined how communities of European waterbirds, which show dynamic variations in distribution, changed over 25 […]
Posted in: behaviour, biodiversity, birds, climate change, community, conservation, dispersal, temperature
How prey refuges affect food webs
February 29, 2024
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Although predation is a major structuring force in ecosystems, there have been surprisingly few studies on the ways that refuges from predation affect the functioning of food webs. In aquatic systems, algal biofilms grow on hard surfaces and grazing animals play a key role in transferring this primary production to higher levels on the food […]
Posted in: behaviour, feeding, fish, food webs, habitat diversity, invertebrates, microbial, nutrients, plants, predation, production
New ways to sample lakes: underwater drones
February 29, 2024
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In deep lakes and reservoirs the heating of surface water layers in summer often leads to thermal stratification, with static, oxygen-limited conditions at deeper levels. These seasonal changes can have profound impacts on the vertical distribution of fish and other animals, but our understanding of depth-related habitat use has been limited because of sampling problems. […]
Posted in: behaviour, biodiversity, community, fish, fishing, habitat diversity, lakes, temperature, turbidity
New ways to sample lakes: an invertebrate protocol
February 29, 2024
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Small shallow lakes can support a richer biodiversity than any other freshwater ecosystem, and they provide a wide range of human services, including water supply, recreation, fish production, pollution treatment and flood mitigation. However, although over 80% of natural wetlands have been lost since the early 1700s, small shallow lakes are still largely absent from […]
Posted in: biodiversity, community, connectivity, conservation, fish, geology, habitat diversity, invertebrates, lakes, plants, production
Freshwater Research News 
February 29, 2024
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