The contribution of the "Darwin Initiative" collection in the Lake Baikal benthic diatom survey

• Main Authors: Tatyana A. Sherbakova, Galina V. Pomazkina, Dmitri Yu. Sherbakov, Yelena V. Rodionova
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Altai State University 2023
• Subjects: diatom diversity; new taxa; species flocks; Biology (General); QH301-705.5; Sibirica
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.10199611; https://doaj.org/article/ca9f2e1fb8314c5baadf922e392685c7

The joint Russian-British collection "Darwin Initiative. Benthic samples of Lake Baikal", was established at the end of the 1990s. Here we briefly overview the data on the survey of the Lake Baikal coastal diatom diversity obtained exclusively using the materials from the collection and methods of light and scanning electron microscopy. The collection contains over 500 initial samples taken at 53 stations of the lake littoral zone from depths 1–20 m. Studying the samples Russian and foreign algologists have identified many new for science diatom taxa, including over 20 genera and 750 species. Data on the collection survey are published in six monographs and atlases, and more than 20 scientific papers. The observed patterns of diversity, distribution, and levels of endemicity in different taxa of Lake Baikal benthic diatoms are discussed.