Diatoms of North America
Joy Ramstack Hobbs
Taxon Contributor
Associate Scientist St. Croix Watershed Research Station, Science Museum of Minnesota
No matter where I go, I always seem to find myself studying diatoms in Minnesota lakes.
Sheri Fritz introduced me to diatoms when I was a graduate student in her lab and I have been hooked ever since. My research revolves around using diatoms in lake sediments to reconstruct past environmental conditions. I like that this work informs basic science (how lake ecosystems function) as well as applied science (how we can best manage our lakes). Recently, I have been involved with the Neotoma Paleoecology Database (neotomadb.org), and have been busy archiving many years of diatom counts to make them more broadly accessible for global change research