Iconella hibernica

This taxon was found in a benthic dredge sample in a deep location of West Lake Okoboji, Dickinson County, Iowa. In specimens from the Reimer Herbarium, it was found in planktonic, epiphytic and epilithic samples of Lake Okoboji. The taxon is typically associated with the epipelon and can be found in fresh, brackish, and marine waters (Round et al. 1990). Cells can also be tychoplanktonic, becoming resuspended into the water column during periods of turnover or high turbidity, resulting in its inclusion in samples of other substrata. The large frustules are likely to settle to the lake bottom resulting in relatively high benthic populations.

Other distributional and ecological records include central Italy (Ramrath et al. 1999) and western Tibet (Van Campo and Gasse 1993). In a sediment core taken from Lago di Mezzano, one of the most dominant diatom species (as Campylodiscus hibernicus) in both the Pleistocene unit and the Late Glacial/Holocene unit; the presence of C. hibernicus in turbidites within the core indicated that it could have been transported into the lake from the shore (Ramrath et al. 1999). It was also one of the dominant diatom species in the uppermost part of a sediment core taken in the Sumxi Co Basin of western Tibet, reflective of the slightly oligosaline status and relatively shallow state of the modern lake (Van Campo and Gasse 1993).