Redressing the limnological imbalance: Trends in aquatic ecology, management and conservation in Australia

Abstract

Almost 20 years ago, Bill Williams wrote a provocative opinion paper (Williams, 1988) entitled 'Limnological imbalances: an antipodean viewpoint'. In his typical stimulating style, Bill Williams made a number of assertions about his personal perception of the global status of the discipline of limnology and some recommendations for future directions and ways to address the perceived 'imbalance'. In essence, he argued that modern limnology is excessively concerned with research and issues in the northern temperate region because that is where the majority of work published in England originates. Concepts and models such as the River Continuum Concept (Vannote et al., 1980) and the processes of stratification in dimictic lakes (reviewed in Hutchinson, 1967) were spawned and supported by examples from the northern temperate region, and through adoption into textbooks, became considered the 'norm'. Naturally, these models and concepts came to underpin management strategies, sometimes being misapplied to situations well beyond those intended by the original proponents. Williams (1988) concluded his paper with encouragement to 'consider alternatives' and to broaden the scope of modern limnology to include salt lakes (his personal favourite) and the temporary waters because, as he argued, these may be more typical of world waterbodies than deep permanent lakes or hydrologically stable north temperate rivers.