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The Littlest Greenhouse |
| Section: NATURAL SCIENCE / NATURE WALK |
| Author: Rex L. Lowe |
| Publication: The world & I online |
| Issue Date: 4/1/1990 |
| Size: 1,293 Words, 7,751 Characters |
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Plant? Animal? Or animated crystal? Diatoms - minute, single-celled jewels of the microbial world - posed and intriguing puzzle to early microscopists. In nearly every aquatic habitat that early explorers of things microbial examined with their compound light microscopes, they discovered a seemingly endless variety of organisms that did not seem to fit into the rigid nineteenth-century classifications of life. Although they possessed chlorophyll and a definite cell wall similar to plants, this wall was glassy and transparent. As many appeared to "crawl" about, they were initially classified as animals.
However, we should not be too harsh on early microscopists' judgment. It is difficult to discard ideas confirmed by centuries of observations in a world without microscopes. Mod...
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... Dakota, record cycles alternatively resulted in a lake full of fresh water supporting freshwater diatoms and a shallow, salty lake supporting salt-tolerant diatoms. Diatoms exist in a microscopic realm where art meets science. These spectacularly beautiful “cathedral windows" provide food and oxygen for the world and are also silent witnesses to environmental quality both past and present.
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