Diatoms are of significant ecological importance in aquatic ecosystems, which stems from their dynamic position at the base of the trophic web as primary producers. Because diatom communities have specific environmental requirements and respond rapidly to changes in environmental conditions they are often employed as a cost-effective method to assess anthropogenic impacts and health statuses of...

Because diatom communities are subject to the prevailing water quality in the Great Lakes coastal environment, diatom-based indices can be used to support coastal-monitoring programs and paleoecological studies. Diatom samples were collected from Great Lakes coastal wetlands, embayments, and high-energy sites (155 sites), and assemblages were characterized to the species level. We defined 42 me...

Although the sea turtles have long been familiar and even iconic to marine biologists, many aspects of their ecology remain unaddressed. The present study is the first of the epizoic diatom community covering the olive ridley turtle's (Lepidochelys olivacea) carapace and the first describing diatoms living on sea turtles in general, with the primary objective of providing detailed information o...

Diatom production is mainly supported by the dissolution of biogenic silica (bSiO2) within the first 200m of the water column. The upper oceanic layer is enriched in dissolved and/or colloidal organic matter, such as exopolymeric polysaccharides (EPS) and transparent exopolymeric particles (TEP) excreted by phytoplankton in large amounts, especially at the end of a bloom. In this study we explo...

The pennate diatom Seminavis robusta, characterized by an archetypical diatom life cycle including a heterothallic mating system, is emerging as a model system for studying the molecular regulation of the diatom cell and life cycle. One of its main advantages compared with other diatom model systems is that sexual crosses can be made routinely, offering unprecedented possibilities for forward g...

Four laboratory experiments on fresh, modern diatoms collected from lakes in the Northern Great Plains of North America were carried out to assess the effects of dissolution on diatom abundance and composition. Marked differences in mean dissolution susceptibility exist between species, despite sometimes significant intra-specific variation between heterovalves. Twenty-four taxa were ranked acc...

Forensic geoscience is concerned with the analysis of geological materials in order to compare and exclude environmental samples from a common source, or to identify an unknown provenance in a criminal investigation. Diatom analysis is currently an underused technique within the forensic geoscience approach, which has the potential to provide an independent ecological assessment of trace eviden...

Fideliacyclus wombatiensis gen. et sp. nov. – a Paleocene non-marine centric diatom from northern Canada with complex frustule architecture Peter A. Siver, Alexander P. Wolfe & Mark B. Edlund To cite this article: Peter A. Siver, Alexander P. Wolfe & Mark B. Edlund (2016): Fideliacyclus wombatiensis gen. et sp. nov. – a Paleocene non-marine centric diatom from northern Canada with complex frust...

Diatoms are the most diverse group of algae, playing a major role in global carbon and silicon cycles (Kidder and Erwin, 2001; Armbrust, 2009) and inhabiting virtually any environment that provides moisture and sunlight (Mann, 1999). Thus, they offer important information to help reconstruct paleoen-vironments and clarify stratigraphic relationships. Their strati-graphic range extends down at l...

An investigation of vertical distribution, rhythms of vertical migration and division of epipelic free-living diatom algae was carried out at different sediment depths on intertidal sandflat in the Chernaya River Estuary (Kandalaksha Gulf, White Sea, Russia) during the summers of 1994–2001. The depth of penetration of viable microalgae cells in the sediment did not exceed 4.2 cm in the areas wi...