Minnesota diatomists: The first 150 years

Minnesota boasts over 12,000 lakes, most of glacial origin, three major continental drainage systems (Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico, Lake Superior via the other Great Lakes to the Atlantic Ocean, and the Red River of the North via the Nelson River, to Hudson Bay), and a diversity of landforms comprising seven major ecological regions. Such landscape and aquatic variability hosts a high diversity of diatoms, which have been studied for over 150 years. Diatom communities range from saline and eutrophic in the southwest agricultural lands, to oligotrophic and endemic forms in the cold waters of Lake Superior. Early diatom collections were distributed to reknowned diatomists such as C.G. Ehrenberg and H.L. Smith. Other botanists and phycologists, including Tilden, Eddy, and Drouet, were active in Minnesota but only rarely included diatoms in their studies. Interest in Minnesota diatoms increased in the latter half of the 20th century with taxonomic and floristic surveys (e.g., Czarnecki, Koppen, and Kingston) and the inclusion of diatoms in applied research efforts that set the groundwork for understanding post-glacial ecology, effects of Euroamerican settlement, impacts of climate, and the effects of acid precipitation. Important to these latter developments were the efforts of Dr. Herb Wright Jr., who invited several European diatomists (e.g., Florin, Battarbee, and Haworth) t