Climate Change

Freshwater ecosystems are particularly vulnerable to climate change because they are relatively isolated, physically fragmented within a largely terrestrial landscape and are heavily exploited by humans for the provision of resources and services. Furthermore, freshwater biodiversity is disproportionately at risk on a global scale since freshwaters cover only 0.8% of the Earth's surface, but are estimated to host 6% of all species (Dudgeon et al., 2006). By 2050, 80% of Africa's freshwater fish species are likely to experience hydrologic conditions substantially different from those in which they currently live (Thieme et al., 2010). Declines in primary productivity, fish of commercial importance and endemic molluscs have accompanied the warming of Lake Tanganyika (O’Reilly et al., 2013; Cohen et al., 2016).