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Diatoms are classified as eukaryotes, organisms with a nuclear envelope-bound cell nucleus, that separates them from the prokaryotes archaea and bacteria. Diatoms are a type of plankton called phytoplankton, the most common of the plankton types. Diatoms also grow attached to benthic substrates, floating debris, and on macrophytes.
Medlin and co-workers erected a new class, Mediophyceae (which could be re-ranked a subclass if diatoms as a whole are ranked as a class rather than a phylum) for the "polar centric" diatoms, which they consider to be more closely related to the pennate rather than to other centric diatoms, a concept which has been followed or further adapted ...
The frustule is composed almost purely of silica, made from silicic acid, and is coated with a layer of organic substance, which was referred to in the early literature on diatoms as pectin, a fiber most commonly found in cell walls of plants. [1] [2] This layer is actually composed of several types of polysaccharides. [3]
Dead diatoms drift to the ocean floor where, over millions of years, the remains of their frustules can build up as much as half a mile deep. [64] Diatoms have relatively high sinking speeds compared with other phytoplankton groups, and they account for about 40% of particulate carbon exported to ocean depths. [60] [65] [62]
Diatoms are eukaryotic organisms in the phylum Bacillariophyta. This page contains articles about diatoms and diatomists.. Older classifications used to subdivide diatoms into Centrales and Pennales (with Bacillariophyceae used as a class), whereas more recent ones use a three classes system: Bacillariophyceae, Coscinodiscophyceae and Fragilariophyceae.
Chaetoceros is a genus of diatoms in the family Chaetocerotaceae, first described by the German naturalist C. G. Ehrenberg in 1844. [1] Species of this genus are mostly found in marine habitats, but a few species exist in freshwater. [2] It is arguably the common and most diverse genus of marine planktonic diatoms, [3] with over 200 accepted ...
Diatoms are unique in the sense that they have valves, created by the two halves of a diatom's test. Cyclotella spp. are no exception, as they form the upper and lower portions of the wall. The girdle bands that support the valves are thin strips of silica and ultimately circumscribe the cell.
Nitzschia is found mostly in colder waters, and is associated with both Arctic and Antarctic polar sea ice, where it is often found to be the dominant diatom. Nitzschia includes several species of diatoms known to produce the neurotoxin known as domoic acid, a toxin responsible for the human illness called amnesic shellfish poisoning.