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Diatom

Class: Bacillariophyceae

Published on Project Noah
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40.671, -78.526

Field Notes

Habitat:

Found along shoreline of man-made lake.
State Park in SW Pennsylvania.

Species ID Suggestions

Comments (5)
Namitha
Hi William_Dembowski, Thank you for the link. Its nice to know about your project too. I also, usually ID things by giving short descriptions in google image search. I think, that will be one of the most practical ways available.
William_Dembowski
Hi Namitha, Good luck with your project. It sounds very similar to one that I am conducting to show a correlation between the presence of diatoms & desmids and the pH levels of their watery habitats. I am sorry to say there are few sites that I regularly visit for identifying micro-organisms. They are all arranged by their genera names so you must, in effect, know what you are looking for before you can find it. What I usually do is Google for images using a brief description and then follow the path of anything that looks similar. Having said all that, here is one site that you may find useful for algae: http://algalweb.net/indext-ab.htm
Namitha
Hi William Dembowski, I saw the blog. Thank you so much for sharing the technique.The methods you are using to capture these images is wondeful. The closest equipment that I have, is a compound microscope with 10X and 45X magnification, through which I spotted some Scenedesmus algae.For me, it is a wonderful equipment, but the main problem I face is, it's very difficult to identify the different life forms I see through my microscope. Could you suggest some sites which have the list of different algal forms in ponds and other water bodies. I wish to get this information, because I thought of doing a survey on the 'micro life' in the ponds and water bodies near my house. To see how the diversity vary based on pollution and artificial fertilizer levels. I started doing this project, but couldn't go further with it as I couldn't identify many of the organisms I saw through the microscope.
William_Dembowski
Hi Namitha - Thanks for the kind words. I use a Leica CME microscope and a Moticam 10 digital microscope camera. The single most helpful technique that I can offer is covered briefly in my blog at: http://zone-vx.com/blog/2013/03/10/focus-stacking/ If you have any questions I will be glad to answer them.
Namitha
Hi William Dembowski, All your microscopic spottings are really amazing. What technique did you use to take this pictures. Very interesting.

Spotted for Missions

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Microscopic Life

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PublishedSeptember 4, 2013

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