The various effects of salinity on aquatic communities have been less well studied than terrestrial biota.

With one exception, previous studies on the effects of rising salinities on faunal communities in Western Australia have been either largely anecdotal or limited to comparisons among sites within a single catchment.

Whereas several organism assemblages, such as fish, can be used to assess the condition of biological communities, most bioassessment techniques are based on macroinvertebrates, a ubiquitous and diverse component of stream communities that is known to be sensitive to pollutants.

However, knowledge of how invertebrate community structure and composition varies with salt contamination is limited. Similarly, while the sensitivity of specific families of macroinvertebrates to many common types of pollutants is known, their sensitivity to salt contamination is still poorly understood.

Project aims

This project aims to use periodic ecological sampling of benthic invertebrate and fish communities at a range of sites of differing salinity levels to:

• characterise surface water faunal communities associated with different levels of salt contamination
• explore the relationship between faunal community structure and salinity levels, with a view to identifying critical levels at which significant changes in biodiversity occur
• recommend target levels for salt concentrations in rivers and lakes aimed at either restoring past or conserving present-day faunal biodiversity.