20 January 2016

Three new videos highlight the outcomes of a NERP research project, which worked to explore the science behind Kakadu National Park’s highly productive and diverse ecosystems.

What underpins the productivity of Kakadu’s wetlands

Professor Stuart Bunn from Griffith University provides an overview of the project, which provided a better understanding of the importance of floodplains to freshwater biodiversity in northern Australia to inform water resource management. Dr Bunn also talks about the implications of the research and why maintaining hydrologic connectivity is critical for the maintenance of biodiversity in tropical floodplain systems.

Flooding, algae and Kakadu food webs

In this video, senior research fellow Doug Ward from Griffith University discusses the information which helped researchers to identify which floodplain areas are ‘hotspots’ for supporting food webs. Dr Ward talks about satellite images, which were taken at different times of the year, to work out which floodplain areas are inundated, how much water they are holding and for how long. The video also highlights the importance of epiphytic algae as a higher quality food source and the conditions and locations where it grows best.

The importance of fish movement on Kakadu floodplains

Hub researchers studied the movements of two large-bodied fish – Barramundi and Salmon Catfish. In this video, Charles Darwin University Associate Professor David Crook explains why they wanted to explore the importance of fish movement as a means of understanding the transport of energy from floodplains and estuaries into freshwater fish populations.