Limnology in the tropics: Next steps?

Limnology in the tropics provides a new paradigm for inland water science, which has traditionally focused on temperate regions. Numerous studies have shown that tropical inland waters are fundamentally different from temperate systems. Warm conditions, combined with higher solar radiation and higher precipitation rates, have important consequences for biogeochemical processes in tropical waters. In addition, rapid population and economic growth has resulted in high levels of anthropogenic pressures on these systems. Such pressures have resulted in a reduction in the adequate supply of water of acceptable quality in many tropical countries and provide challenges to limnologists in terms of societal concerns and climate change impacts. Using a bibliometric approach to assessing limnological studies in the tropics, we examined how tropical limnology has barely touched the fundamental complexity that tropical inland waters have. Over 12,000 references were found and indexed by Scopus as being within the category of “limnology”. Only 335 of these were grouped under tropical studies. However, similar to those studied globally, studies from the tropics focused mainly on “lake”, “river”, “phytoplankton”, “carbon”, “oxygen”, “fish” and “nutrient”. While areas of research tended to reflect how limnologists perceive the impacts of climate change and eutrophication on lentic and lotic systems, the ecosystem services provided by inland waters and their resilience to disturbance were found to require further study.