Variation in assemblages of small fishes and microcrustaceans after inundation of rarely flooded wetlands of the lower Okavango Delta, Botswana.

Water extraction from floodplain river systems may alter patterns of inundation of adjacent wetlands and lead to loss of aquatic biodiversity. Water reaching the Okavango Delta (Delta), Botswana, may decrease due to excessive water extraction and climate change. However, due to poor understanding of the link between inundation of wetlands and biological responses, it is difficult to assess the impacts of these future water developments on aquatic biota.

The tropical African mercury anomaly: lower than expected mercury concentrations in fish and human hair.

Mercury is a neurotoxin and global pollutant, and wetlands and newly flooded areas are known to be sites of enhanced production of monomethylmercury, the form of mercury that is readily biomagnified in aquatic food chains to potentially toxic levels. The Okavango Delta in Botswana, Southern Africa, is the largest inland delta in the world and a wetland ecosystem that experiences dramatic annual flooding of large tracts of seasonal floodplains. The Delta was, therefore, expected to be home to high mercury levels in fish and to be an area where local subsistence fishing communities would be at substantial risk of mercury toxicity from fish consumption.