Abundance and composition of fish in sites with varying degradation levels in Lake Wamala

Occurrence
Latest version published by National Fisheries Resources Research Institute on Feb 2, 2020 National Fisheries Resources Research Institute

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Description

This resource provides the abundance and composition of fish in Lake Wamala. Data was collected in sites with varying land degradation levels.

Data Records

The data in this occurrence resource has been published as a Darwin Core Archive (DwC-A), which is a standardized format for sharing biodiversity data as a set of one or more data tables. The core data table contains 126 records.

This IPT archives the data and thus serves as the data repository. The data and resource metadata are available for download in the downloads section. The versions table lists other versions of the resource that have been made publicly available and allows tracking changes made to the resource over time.

Versions

The table below shows only published versions of the resource that are publicly accessible.

How to cite

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

Kamya A, Nsega M, Natugonza V, Musinguzi L (2020): Abundance and composition of fish in sites with varying degradation levels in Lake Wamala. v1.0. National Fisheries Resources Research Institute. Dataset/Occurrence. http://ipt-uganda.gbif.fr/resource?r=fishdegredation&v=1.0

Rights

Researchers should respect the following rights statement:

The publisher and rights holder of this work is National Fisheries Resources Research Institute. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC-BY-NC 4.0) License.

GBIF Registration

This resource has been registered with GBIF, and assigned the following GBIF UUID: e67d74f2-45c8-40c8-88bd-c2bcc94975ac.  National Fisheries Resources Research Institute publishes this resource, and is itself registered in GBIF as a data publisher endorsed by GBIF Uganda.

Keywords

Occurrence; Fish; Lake Wamala. Freshwater; Observation

Contacts

Ashiraf Kamya
  • Originator
Research technician
National Fisheries Resources Research Institute
Nile Crescent, Plot 39/45, Opposite the wagon ferry terminal
343 Jinja
UG
Monic Nsega
  • Originator
Principal Research technician
National Fisheries Resources Research Institute
Nile Crescent, Plot 39/45, Opposite the wagon ferry terminal
343 Jinja
UG
Vianny Natugonza
  • Originator
  • Point Of Contact
Research officer
National Fisheries Resources Research Institute
Nile Crescent, Plot 39/45, Opposite the wagon ferry terminal
343 Jinja
UG
Laban Musinguzi
  • Metadata Provider
  • Originator
  • User
  • Point Of Contact
Research officer
National Fisheries Resources Research Institute
Nile Crescent, Plot 39/45, Opposite the wagon ferry terminal
343 Jinja
UG

Geographic Coverage

The resource covers Lake Wamala. The lake is a UNEP designated environmental change hotspot (https://na.unep.net/atlas/webatlas.php?id=391).

Bounding Coordinates South West [0.247, 31.737], North East [0.414, 32.011]

Taxonomic Coverage

Fish taxa identified to genus and species

Genus Enteromius, Haplochromis
Species Clarias gariepinus, Coptodon zillii, Oreochromis niloticus, Oreochromis leucostictus, Protopterus aethiopicus

Temporal Coverage

Formation Period 2016-2017

Project Data

Land use and land-use change influence aquatic ecosystem health, ultimately impacting fish production and livelihoods of fishery-dependent communities. The project aimed at generating knowledge to guide effective investments in interventions to promote sustainable land management practices in the Lake Victoria Crescent agro-ecological zone. This was envisaged to limit the undesirable influence of unsustainable land management practices on the Lake Environment and biotic components, contributing to the sustainability of livelihoods.

Title Promoting Sustainable Catchment Management Practices to Improve the Aquatic Ecosystem Health and Livelihoods on Lake Wamala
Funding The project was supported by the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) through its funding provided to the Government of Uganda.
Study Area Description The project was implemented on Lake Wamala. Lake Wamala is an environmental change hotspot within the Lake Victoria watershed. The lake has an area of 250 sq. km, an average depth of 5m and a catchment of ≈2000 sq. km. The catchment is dominated by croplands that have increased since the 1990s at the expense of a native land cover.
Design Description The aim of the project was to examine how land-use practices adjacent to the lake influence aquatic fauna. The abundance and composition of fish were examined in sites with different levels of land degradation. The hypothesis was that different levels of land degradation are associated with different physical and chemical water conditions which in turn influence the structure and composition of fish species

The personnel involved in the project:

Laban Musinguzi
Richard Ogutu-Ohwayo
  • Principal Investigator

Sampling Methods

The sites for data collection were chosen depending on the adjacent land cover or land use within the lake riparian buffers. Three sites (Lusarila, Kilaza, and Bagwe) were adjacent to the degraded riparian buffer. Two sites were adjacent to extensive wetland or intact riparian buffer (Bukanaga and Kyayi), and two sites (Mpamuguju and Nyanzi) adjacent to intact riparian buffer but situated on river mouths draining cropland dominated catchment. The sites adjacent to degraded riparian buffers had croplands separated from water by a small strip of wetland vegetation (papyrus reeds) of <15m. The sites adjacent to extensive wetland were considered near pristine or less degraded. These still held extensive wetlands coverage within 200 m from the shoreline, consistent with the national guidelines for protecting at least 100 to 200 m buffer zone around lakes and 30 to 100m around rivers or streams (National Environment (Wetlands; River Banks and Lake Shores Management) Regulations 2000). The sites situated on rivers were referred to as riverine, with extensive wetland coverage in the riparian buffers but, unlike less degraded areas, have rivers directly draining adjacent catchment dominated by croplands. We captured fish using a boat seine, a modification of a beach seine (Witte and Van Densen 1995). The seine net used had three main parts including wings, the bunt and a holding bag of 51mm, 25.5mm and 8mm mesh sizes, respectively. The net was set as a round-haul at about 100 m from the shoreline with one end of the line held at 10-15m from the shoreline to avoid obstacles such as tree stumps that damage nets. The sampling was conducted for a year at four different random times: October 2016, January, March, June and October 2017. At each sampling site, three hauls were conducted. Subsequent hauls were done in similar areas as much as possible for standardization. One riverine site, Nyanzi, was not sampled in October 2016 because it was not accessible. At every time of sampling, fish captured in the three hauls at each site were treated as one sample.

Study Extent The study was conducted between October 2016 and October 2017 in sites with different levels of land degradation. Papyrus was the common vegetation adjacent to water and the different sites of the lake are surrounded by different thicknesses of this vegetation although, in some sites, it has been cleared up to the lake’s shoreline. Seven sampling sites were selected for the study. The sites were categorized into three as follows: (1) Less degraded sites (2) Degraded sites, and (3) Riverine sites, based on the level of adjacent land degradation, the thickness of the shoreline vegetation and location near the river mouth.
Quality Control The validity of scientific names was based on FishBase, and Eschmeyer’s catalogue of fishes (Froese & Pauly, 2019; Fricke et al. 2019).

Method step description:

  1. The validity of scientific names was based on FishBase, and Eschmeyer’s catalogue of fishes (Froese & Pauly, 2019; Fricke et al. 2019).

Bibliographic Citations

  1. Fricke, R., Eschmeyer, W. N. & R. Van der Laan (eds) 2019. Eschmeyer's catalog of fishes: genera, species, references. (http://researcharchive.calacademy.org/research/ichthyology/catalog/fishcatmain.asp). Electronic version accessed dd mmm 2019.
  2. Froese, R. and D. Pauly. Editors. 2019. FishBase. World Wide Web electronic publication. www.fishbase.org, version (08/2019)
  3. Witte F, van Densen WLT (eds) (1995) Fish stocks and fisheries of Lake Victoria. A handbook for field observations. Samara Publishing Limited, Cardigan, Great Britain
  4. National Environment (Wetlands; River Banks and Lake Shores Management) Regulations (2000) The National Environment (Wetlands, River Banks and Lake Shores Management) Regulations, No. 3/2000 (Under section 107 of the National Environmental Act Cap 153), statutory instruments, No.3

Additional Metadata