DiatomBase – Principal online catalogue of diatoms
Diatoms are the most ubiquitous and
species-rich lineages of siliceous microalgae (phylum: Bacillariophyta) that play
an important role in the ecosystem by
contributing about 20% of the oxygen we
breathe
Due to their morphology and
various uses, they have attracted the
attention of researchers the world over.
Efforts have been made over one and
half century to catalogue diatoms.
As an official start, a
group of 19 scientists from 12 countries
came together for the first time before
the 11th Central European Diatom Meeting hosted by the Czech Academy of
Science during a LifeWatch-WoRMS
sponsored workshop held in March 2017
at Prague. John Patrick Kociolek (University of Colorado Museum of Natural
History and Department of Ecology and
Evolutionary Biology, University of
Colorado, USA) is the chief taxonomic
editor of DiatomBase. Karthick Balasubramanian (Agharkar Research Institute,
Pune) is the only participant from India.
After the general introduction on VLIZ,
Aphia and WoRMS, there was a session
on WoRMS online editing by Leen Vandepitte (member of the WoRMS data
management team).
The website (www.diatombase.org) has been officially
launched during the 11th International
Phycological Congress in August 2017 at
Szczecin, Poland.
0 Comments