Capability Statement

DIATOMA has the capacity to undertake research on a wide range of elements within aquatic ecology, and across a wide temporal dimension.

Diatom Bioassessment

Diatoms are arguably the aquatic organisms most suitable for the biomonitoring of aquatic systems as they:

• respond directly to the water quality;
• are abundant, diverse and cosmopolitan;
• are well documented ecologically;
• are easy to collect and prepare;
• can be identified to species level and beyond;
• preserve in sediments and on herbarium macrophyte collections.

DIATOMA can sample, prepare, identify, enumerate and interpret diatom assemblages from modern aquatic systems. We have established and published diatom-water quality data sets from Australian reservoirs, lakes and streams and can use these to statistically infer the condition of any water body.

Complementing this is our capacity so extract cores from wetland sediments and, through sub-sampling and treatment, can extract the fossil diatom assemblages and infer changes in wetland water quality over time. 

Palynology

DIATOMA can also examine fossil pollen (and potentially the ostracods, chironomids, daphnia and pigments) and document the nature of the terrestrial vegetation surrounding, and the aquatic vegetation within, a wetland through comparison of present and past floras.  

Aquatic System Bioassessment

DIATOMA also has the capacity to undertake surveys of waterbirds and  algae other than diatoms and infer the health of the ecosystem from the species assemblages. This is accomplished through multivariate statistical analysis, including modern techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks (ANN),  to explain and predict some complex ecological relationships.