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Showing posts from September, 2013

Three new Everglades diatom species named

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Recently, my colleagues and I named three new Everglades diatom species after much morphological analyses and taxonomic detective work. While the Everglades diatom community may not be as species-rich as lakes in more temperate environments, there are many species waiting to receive a proper name and publication. The reason that so many species continue to be called "species number 17" or "looks like this other species but not quite" is because there just has not been the kind of focused taxonomic research here in subtropical and tropical places in the Western hemisphere. Contrast this to the hundreds of years of research on European diatoms. The Everglades diatom community offers great opportunities for graduate students, like me, to investigate and describe new species! Everglades periphyton with four live cells of  Mastogloia calcarea at 1000x magnification For the FIU News article, click here: http://news.fiu.edu/2013/09/ algae-researcher-names-three- ne