View article

Algae, the dominant primary producers in many aquatic ecosystems, are critical to global biogeochemical cycling, and changes in their abundance and composition can cascade throughout aquatic food webs. Diatoms often dominate the algal communities in many freshwater systems. Their population dynamics are affected by a variety of environmental variables, many of which are linked to changes in water column properties and habitat availability, which themselves can be linked to shifts in ice cover, length of the growing season, thermal stability and stratification, vertical mixing patterns, habitat alterations, and the availability of resources such as light and nutrients. Climate has strong moderating controls on all of these fundamental aquatic processes, which can directly and indirectly alter species composition, abundance and seasonal dynamics of both periphytic and planktonic diatoms. In this review …