Diatoms of North AmericaThe first virtual diatom course through Iowa Lakeside Laboratory brought together participants from across the U.S. and across the pond in Ireland and the Philippines. The need to achieve learning objectives in an online environment inspired the use of technologies. Notably, these technologies are completely free and open source, including GIMP, ImageJ, R, and Biigle. In particular, Biigle was an effective and user-friendly tool for learning to identify diatom taxa found on digital scans of entire microscope slides. The slide scans also provided an opportunity to create voucher floras and further develop skills needed to distinguish morphological characteristics between taxa.
Course Objectives
- Students learned how to visualize the three-dimensional structure of diatom frustules and how to describe diatom morphological characteristics. Students will understand the information on diatoms.org taxon pages (e.g., https://diatoms.org/species/diploneis-puella).
- Students learned how to group morphological operational taxonomic units reflecting a good understanding of diatom life cycles.
- Students developed a working knowledge of North American diatom genera and basic rules of nomenclature.
- Students developed a general understanding of how diatom data are assembled, quality checked, and applied to answer ecological research questions.
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the diatom community and science communicators for enhancing and providing resources for the course, including guest lecturers (Mark Edlund, Paula Furey, Bryan Kennedy, Jeffery Stone), collaborators (Andrea Burfeid, Michael Kloster), the Diatom Web Academy, Diatoms.org, ISDR Diatom of the Month blog, and Journey to the Microcosmos.
