Given it is now understood that there are up to 25,000 known diatom species, how is it possible for anyone, no matter how experienced and skilled that person might be, to identify correctly and consistently more than a small proportion of that total number? Even if a few gifted and well-trained individuals could manage a vast number of them, for the rest of us, we are left with a problem: How might the task of identifying diatoms be made more manageable? There are numerous diatom identification guides and floras available. Consulting them is the usual way forward. These now come in various formats, some easy to get, others less so; some easy to use, others less so. Many are focused on a particular region or area, others with a global coverage and some disregard regions altogether and focus on diatoms as a group (as a taxon).This still seems not to satisfy everybody and the quest for bigger and better, faster and more accurate methods of diatom identification is being explored, some embracing the idea that there could be a “Taxonomy-free molecular diatom index for high-throughput eDNA biomonitoring,” or even a human-free approach. I want to discuss these issues and other related matters, from the perspective of classification, detailing the differences between identification guides and floras (for the most part artificial classifications) and biological classification (natural classification). |
