Our knowledge of the paleoenvironmental changes of Lake Victoria has grown over the past few years with the efforts of Researchers and PhDs involved in the Swiss SNF funded Sinergia Lake Victoria project and the Swedish Research Council funded ARCC project (Scaini et al 2024 Ambio). Both projects collected new sediment cores from Lake Victoria in 2018 (Courtney Mustaphi et al 2021) and have produced several research publications, including Nature (Ngoepe et al 2023) and a presentation series led by ARCC team member Colin Courtney-Mustaphi.
The “Ancient Victoriasee” series of presentations highlighted different aspects of research on paleoenvironmental change in and around Lake Victoria that included past studies since the late 1800s into the early 2000s (for example Kendall 1969; Johnson et al 2000), new data on the early refilling of the lake water (Wienhues et al in press 2023), new pollen and charcoal data (Temoltzin-Loranca et al 2022, 2023a, 2023b), invertebrate records (King et al 2024a, 2024b; Courtney Mustaphi et al 2023, 2024), fossil pigment data (Wienhues et al 2024), and fossil cichlid teeth records (Ngoepe et al 2023, 2024).
![](http://www.real-project.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/cores-Capture.jpg)
Presentation list
Courtney Mustaphi CJ. 2024. Environmental change in and around Lake Victoria, eastern Africa. Current topics in Geoecology, University of Basel, Switzerland. 26 March 2024.
Courtney Mustaphi CJ. 2024. Ancient Victoriasee. Research seminar: Current Studies in Biogeochemistry, Stable Isotope Ecology and Environmental Reconstruction, University of Basel. 10 April 2024.
Courtney-Mustaphi C., Rebecca Kariuki, Anna Shoemaker, Anneli Ekblom, Linus Munishi, Rob Marchant, Paul Lane, Claudia Capitani, Thomas Biginagwa, Peter Mwangi, Pamela Ochungo, Stefania Merlo, Benny Lwoga, Beny Lilawola, Simone Markoff, Nathan Chellman, Sam Muñoz, Sandra Brugger, Leighton King, Oliver Heiri et al. 2024. Past, present, and future socio-ecological change across the Kenya–Tanzania borderlands: a multidisciplinary synthesis of land use and land cover change evidence. Advances in modelling past human ecosystems – bringing together traditional ecological knowledge, archaeological science and computational archaeology. Institute of Archaeology, University of Cologne, Germany, 22–24 May 2024. See a Tweet on X!
Misra, P, King L, Wienhues G, Ngoepe N, Temoltzin-Loranca Y, Muschick M, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Kishe M, Mwaiko S, Heiri O, Vogel H, Gilbert T, Grosjean M, Tinner W, Seehausen O, Matthews B. 2023. Spatio-temporal (In)coherence of the Lake Victoria Ecosystem in East Africa. ID#1275415. AGU23.
King L, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Cuenca-Cambronero M, Wienhues G, Kishe M, Heiri O, Seehausen O, Matthews B. 2022. Aquatic invertebrate assemblage changes since the refilling of Lake Victoria. IAL IPA, Bariloche, Argentina. 27 November–1 December 2022.
References
Courtney-Mustaphi C, Kariuki R, Shoemaker A, Munishi L, Ekblom A, Marchant R, Lane P. 2021. Understanding land use and land cover changes in northern Tanzania. Swiss Society for African Studies SSAS [Schweizerische Gesellschaft für Afrikastudien SSEA – SGAS] newsletter, 2021/1: 20–23. [PDF]
Courtney Mustaphi C, Steiner E, Lapellegerie P, von Fumetti S, Heiri O. 2023. Artificially fossilized body parts of aquatic invertebrates as an identification aid for sclerotized chitin preserved in lacustrine, palustrine and deltaic sediments [A0 poster format]. https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QM1T5M, Harvard Dataverse, Version 3.
Courtney-Mustaphi C, Steiner E, von Fumetti S, Heiri O. 2024. Aquatic invertebrate mandibles and sclerotized remains in Quaternary lake sediments. Journal of Paleolimnology 71(1): 45–83.
Johnson TC, Kelts K, Odada E. 2000. The Holocene history of Lake Victoria. Ambio 29: 2-11.
Kendall RL. 1969. An ecological history of the Lake Victoria basin. Ecological Monographs 39(2): 121-176.
King L, Wienhues G, Misra P, Tylmann W, Lami A, Bernasconi S, Jaggi M, Muschick M, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Ngoepe N, Cohen A, Heiri O, Mwaiko S, Kishe MA, Seehausen O, Vogel H, Grosjean M, Matthews B. in press 2024. Anthropogenic eutrophication drives major food web changes in Mwanza Gulf, Lake Victoria. Ecosystems.
King L, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Cuenca-Cambronero M, Wienhues G, Ngoepe N, Muschick M, Temoltzin-Loranca Y, Vogel H, Grosjean M, Tinner W, Cohen A, Kishe M, Heiri O, Seehausen O, Matthews B. 2024. Temporal dynamics of invertebrate community assembly in Lake Victoria since the Late Pleistocene based on chitinous remains. Freshwater Biology 69(5), 660–678. [CC BY 4.0 Open Access]
Ngoepe N, Muschick M, Kishe MA, Mwaiko S, Temoltzin-Loranca Y, King L, Courtney Mustaphi C, Heiri O, Wienhues G, Vogel H, Cuenca-Cambronero M, Tinner W, Grosjean M, Matthews B, Seehausen O. 2023. A continuous fish fossil record reveals key insights into adaptive radiation. Nature 622(7982): 315–320.
Ngoepe N, Merz A, King L, Wienhues G, Kishe MA, Mwaiko S, Matthews B, Courtney Mustaphi C, Heiri O, Cohen A, Tinner W, Muschick M, Seehausen O. 2024. Testing alternative hypotheses for the decline of cichlid fish in Lake Victoria using fish fossils time series from sediment cores. Biology Letters 20(3): 20230604.
Scaini A, Mulligan J, Berg H, Brangarí A, Bukachi V, Carenzo D, Thi Da C, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Ekblom A, Fjelde H, Fridahl M, Hansson A, Hicks L, Höjer M, Juma B, Kain J-H, Kariuki RW, Kim S, Lane P, Leizeaga A, Livsey J, Lyon SW, Marchant R, McConville JR, Munishi L, Nilsson D, Olang L, Olin S, Olsson L, Msumali Rogers P, Rousk J, Sandén H, Sasaki N, Shoemaker A, Smith B, Thai Huynh Phuong L, Varela Varela A, Venkatappa M, Vico G, Von Uexkull N, Wamsler C, Wondie M, Zapata P, Zapata Campos MJ, Manzoni S, Tompsett A. 2024. Pathways from research to sustainable development: insights from ten research projects in sustainability and resilience. Ambio 53: 517–533. [CC BY 4.0 Open Access]
Temoltzin-Loranca, Y., Gobet, E., Vannière, B., van Leeuwen, J.F., Courtney-Mustaphi, C., Wienhues, G., Szidat, S., Grosjean, M. and Tinner, W., 2022, March. Postglacial fire regime changes and vegetation dynamics at Lake Victoria, Africa. In EGU General Assembly Conference Abstracts (pp. EGU22-2788).
Temoltzin-Loranca Y, Gobet E, Vannière B, van Leeuwen JFN, Wienhues G, Szidat S, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Kishe M, Muschick M, Seehausen O, Grosjean M, Tinner W. 2023. A chronologically reliable record of 17,000 years of biomass burning in the Lake Victoria area. Quaternary Science Reviews 301: 107915.
Temoltzin-Loranca Y, Gobet E, Vannière B, van Leeuwen JFN, Wienhues G, Courtney-Mustaphi C, Kishe M, Muschick M, King L, Misra P, Ngoepe N, Matthews B, Vogel H, Heiri O, Seehausen O, Grosjean M, Tinner W. 2023. Long-term ecological successions of vegetation around Lake Victoria (East Africa) in response to latest Pleistocene and Early Holocene climatic changes. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology 631: 111839.
Wienhues G, Temoltzin-Loranca Y, Vogel H, Morlock MA, Anselmetti FS, Bernasconi SM, Jaggi M, Tylmann W, Kishe M, King L, Ngoepe N, Courtney-Mustaphi CJ, Muschick M, Matthews B, Mwaiko S, Seehausen O, Tinner W, Grosjean M. in press 2023. From desiccation to wetlands and outflow: rapid re-filling of Lake Victoria during the Late Pleistocene 14 – 13 ka. Journal of Great Lakes Research X: 102246.
Wienhues G, Lami A, Bernasconi S, Jaggi M, Morlock MA, Vogel H, Cohen AS, Courtney Mustaphi CJ, Heiri O, King L, Kishe MA, Misra P, Muschick M, Ngoepe N, Matthews B, Seehausen O, Temoltzin-Loranca Y, Tinner W, Grosjean M. 2024. Latest Pleistocene and Holocene primary producer communities and hydroclimate in Lake Victoria, eastern Africa. Quaternary Science Reviews 330: 108599. [CC BY 4.0 Open Access]
Acknowledgements
Fieldwork was supported by the African Resilience to Climate Change project administered through Uppsala University, Sweden, through the Sustainability and Resilience: Tackling Climate and Environmental Changes program funded by the Swedish Research Council (Vetenskapsrådet), Sida, and Formas (2016-06355, see Courtney-Mustaphi et al 2021, Scaini et al 2024); exchange visits through the World Bank Africa Centers of Excellence (ACEII) program to the Center for Water Infrastructure and Sustainable Energy (WISE) Futures, Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology, Arusha, Tanzania; a travel grant from the Swiss Society for Quaternary Research (CH-QUAT); the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) Sinergia project grant CRSII5_183566; and a University of Bern Faculty Strategy grant (see King et al 2024). Moritz Muschick provided a photograph from fieldwork on Lake Victoria, 2018.