This paper provides a synopsis of the ecological structure and function of waterways in the Botany Bay catchment, informed by a comprehensive review of literature. Botany Bay is one of Australia’s best known and most studied waterways. It is a large sheltered embayment with a marine-dominated estuary that receives freshwater discharges mainly from the Georges and Cooks Rivers. The catchments of those rivers, and much of the northern shoreline of the bay, have been intensively developed over the past two centuries. Thus, the structure and functioning of all ecosystems in the region have been modified to varying extents. However, some natural features have been retained across the Botany Bay catchment, particularly in protected areas in and around Towra Point Nature Reserve and the National Parks in the upper Georges River catchment. Studies of those natural features have provided valuable information about community structure, fish behaviour and food webs in a range of estuarine habitats (particularly seagrass, mangroves and saltmarsh). In contrast to the extensive information about estuarine ecology, there is minimal published information about the natural features of freshwater ecosystems in the catchment.

本文对植物学湾流域的水道生态结构和功能进行了概述，并结合文献进行了全面回顾。植物湾是澳大利亚最著名和研究最多的水道之一。它是一个大型的掩蔽处，有一个以海洋为主导的河口，主要从乔治河和库克斯河接收淡水。在过去的两个世纪中，这些河流的流域以及海湾北部海岸线的大部分地区都得到了大力开发。因此，该区域所有生态系统的结构和功能已在不同程度上进行了修改。但是，整个植物园湾流域仍保留了一些自然景观，特别是在Towra Point自然保护区及其附近和乔治河上游流域的国家公园内的保护区。对这些自然特征的研究提供了有关河口栖息地（特别是海草，红树林和盐沼）范围内的群落结构，鱼类行为和食物网的宝贵信息。与关于河口生态学的广泛信息相反，关于流域淡水生态系统自然特征的公开信息很少。