Diatom of the month – June 2016: Eunotia cisalpina
by Luca Marazzi* This month’s diatom comes from quite far, some 5,000 miles or 8,100 km North-East of Florida: Northern Italy. Its name is Eunotia cisalpina (on this side of the Alps , the south ern side) , and it was described a few years ago 1 by Marco Cantonati, the Science Museum of Trento ’s (MUSE) Head Limnologist and Phycologist whom I am visiting this week. We are at the foot of the famous and wonderful Dolomites mountains , one of over 50 UNESCO World Heritage sites in Italy, comprising some of the highest limestone walls in the world. North-west from here, small mountain lakes, springs, and mire pools dot the landscape of the Adamello and Cevedale mountain ranges; their waters have lower mineral content than the calcareous Dolomites due to the prevalence of siliceous rocks, such as granites. These oligotrophic, acidic, low conductivity habitats are perfect for E. cisalpina (and for E. fallacoides and E. insubrica , other new taxa to science describe...