The Diatoms Biology and Morphology of the Genera

About this book

This book presents a wide-ranging introduction to the diatoms together with an illustrated description of over 250 genera. Diatoms are important as perhaps the commonest group of autotrophic plants on earth and are abundant in all waters and on soils and moist surfaces. The introduction describes the diatom cell in detail, the structure of the wall (often extremely beautiful in design), the cell contents and aspects of life cycle and cell division.

The generic atlas section is the first account of diatom systematics since 1928 (Karsten in Engler and Prantl: Die Nauturlichen Pflanzenfamilien) and each generic description is accompanied by scanning electron micrographs to show the characteristic structure. Most of the latter have been prepared specially for this work from the authors' own collections. The Diatoms will be the standard reference work on the group for years to come and is an essential reference volume.

Originally published in 1990.

Contents

Preface; Part I. Biology of Diatoms: 1. Preamble; 2. The diatom cell; 3. Collecting and studying diatoms; 4. Culturing; 5. Silicon: occurrence, uptake and deposition; 6. Cell symmetry; 7. Life form; 8. Valve structure; 9. Complementarity and heterovalvy; 10. Portules; 11. Ocelli, pseudocelli and pseudonoduli; 12. Raphe; 13. Girdle bands (copulae); 14. Internal valves; 15. Resting stages and resting spores; 16. The organic casing; 17. The protoplast: plastids, mitchondria, dictyosomes, nucleus, vacuole; 18. The cell cycle; 19. Vegetative multiplication and cell size reduction; 20. Sexual reproduction; 21. Oogamy; 22. Physiological anisogamy and isogamy; 23. Automixis and parthenogenesis; 24. Auxospore development; 25. Motility; 26. Ecology; 27. Palaeoecology; 28. Concepts in diatom systematics; 29. Evolution and phylogeny; 30. Fossils; 31. Accounts of genera - preliminary notes; 32. Summary of classification; Part II. Generic Atlas: 33. Centric genera; 34. Araphid genera; 35. Raphid genera; Appendix I: new taxa; Appendix II: list of recently described genera; Appendix III: index nominum genericorum; References, Taxonomic index, Subject index

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