| Abstract: | Summary A study has been made on changes which have occurred in the fish fauna as a result of the formation of the Volta Lake in Ghana. The data on the relative abundance of fish in the Lake were compared with those obtained from fish landings on the Black Volta and from the Niger river survey, as no observations of fish abundance were made on the Volta River before the Akosombo dam was closed. General changes in the relative abundance of the most important families of fish are described and the changes in the relative abundance of six feeding types in the Volta Lake and Black Volta, based on more than 700 stomach and gut analyses of 50 species of fish, are compared with those of the fish found in the Zambezi River and Lake Kariba in Central Africa.The most characteristic features of the changes in fish fauna are an increase in plankton feeders, so that these are becoming dominant in some areas; a great decrease in mormyrids in the Lake as compared with the river, and a similar drop in the characid Alestes, while Tilapia has increased. These changes are not uniform throughout the lake, and differences are most marked along the North-South axis.Department of Zoology and Volta Basin Research Project, University of Ghana |
