Diatom of the Month - July 2017: New discoveries await!
In the last year and a half, ten different authors have talked about 19 diatom species from 19 different genera in our “Diatom of the Month” blog series (11 biraphid, 2 araphid, 2 centric, 1 epithemioid, 1 eunotioid, 1 monoraphid, and 1 nitzschioid), and we got to know about some fantastic 2D and 3D diatom art . We reached thousands of people online via social media (see image below), thus raising awareness about these beautiful and extremely useful primary producers and environmental indicators. We importantly relied on the wonderful “ Diatoms of the United States ” resource for reference and inspiration, which has so far produced taxon pages for 155 genera (25 are u nderway ), and 851 species (202 are u nderway ) ! This was made possible over the years by more than 110 taxon contributors , an effort led by Marina Potapova, Sarah Spaulding, and Mark Edlund and kept under scrutiny by the review board members . The DOTUS Facebook page provides regular up...