What are diatoms, really?
For students-of-the-diatoms who are interested in learning more, these are some of the biological features that distinguish diatoms from other...
Practitioners
Diatoms of North America is created by and for practitioners, people who work at the microscope and people who consider diatom ecology to solve environmental problems.
Taxon Updates
Stay current with genus and species pages as they are opened to public view. The most recent updates are posted here.
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Resources for Practitioners
Specialized resources for people working with diatoms.
Voucher flora archive
A voucher flora is a collection of light microscope images for a defined project. This is a page for posting voucher floras, including yours....
Diatom Taxonomic Certification
The Level 1 certification indicates knowledge of the characteristics of diatom genera from inland North America, based on diatoms.org. The Level 2...
Standardization of taxon authorship names
The taxon authorship names have been adjusted to the format established by The International Plant Names Index (IPNI). This index is the most...
How to clean diatom samples
There are many methods that can be used to remove organic matter from diatoms. The best method depends on the type of sample and the amount of...
What is a voucher flora?
Taxonomic Bias Datasets produced by different analysts are incompatible (Lee et al. 2019). Figure 1 illustrates a diatom survey, with each point...
How to measure the length, width, and stria density of diatoms
ImageJ is a free, powerful software program. It has a handy tool for measuring diatoms from light micrographs or scanning electron micrographs. At...
Information for contributors
As the online taxonomic and ecological resource grows, we are seeking new contributors to submit taxon pages. This project depends on the involvement...
Editorial Review Guidelines
GUIDELINES FOR SPECIES PAGE REVIEW One reviewer from the diatomist community will critique each taxon page before it becomes visible to the public....
But I still haven't found what I'm looking for
The search function (upper left corner of each page) on Diatoms of North America allows practitioners to search for strings within a number of data...
How to make permanent diatom microslides
Before starting to prepare a permanent diatom slide, organic matter must be removed from the sample. The following supplies and process are for the...
How are striae measured in centric diatoms?
The number of striae, or other rotational elements of centric diatoms, such as fascicles, costae, spines, rimoportulae, fultoportulae and other valve...
What has changed on Diatoms of North America?
Here, you can find links to archived genus and species pages: Achnanthidium kreigeri (prior_to_2021_09_01) Pinnularia polyonca (prior_to_2021_08)...
How and where do diatoms live: autecology tags
On each species page, in the autecology section, a series of autecology tags appear. The tags are categorical measures of diatom lifestyle and coded...
