Diatoms: Antarctic Freshwater Diatoms

Diatoms: Antarctic Freshwater Diatoms
McMurdo Dry Valleys Long-Term Ecological Research
Institute of Arctic & Alpine Research
National Science Foundation

What are diatoms?
Algae
Diatoms are single-celled algae found in nearly every aquatic habitat. Their silica (SiO2) walls are one of the features that make them useful as environmental tools in a number of fields, including paleoclimatology, ecology, geology, anthropology, and paleontology.

Proxies
Diatoms have been successfully applied as proxies for a wide range of physico-chemical parameters including:
* pH
* temperature
* salinity
* nutrient concentration
* hydrologic balance
* period of ice-cover
* lake depth
* other parameters

The degree of their utility is dependent upon understanding factors that determine their distribution. Often it has been assumed that ecological tolerance is the most influential to occurrence.

Visit the web site for the rest of the article.