Why is this important: Carlos E. Wetzel is a researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. During the last decade he has authored and co-authored over 160 peer-reviewed articles regarding taxonomy and ecology of diatoms from many continents and environments, including rivers, lakes, soils, and marine environments. Carlos has been teaching numerous training courses on diatom ecology and taxonomy designed for biologists, technicians, and ecologists, contributing to the continuous improvement of the Water Framework Directive in Europe. His current project aims to show soil scientists the hidden diversity terrestrial diatoms and its potential use as bioindicators of soil conditions. While numerous studies have focused on the ecology of aquatic diatoms and their use in assessing water quality over the past decades, much less is known about the ecological behaviour of terrestrial diatoms and their sensitivity/tolerances to environmental factors. In this work, we explore the use of diatoms as indicators of soil condition by combining a traditional microscopic approach with high-throughput sequencing (HTS) metabarcoding techniques to show that terrestrial diatom communities can be used to indicate anthropogenic disturbance levels and soil fertility. This approach could serve as a tool for implementing future policies while enhancing soil biodiversity knowledge. In this talk I will emphasise the effects of taxonomy gaps and how this can be reduced for key species, as shown by preliminary results on the congruence between the information provided by gene sequencing and microscopic analysis, where the identity of some 'unclassified' taxa can be assigned using microscopic techniques. The establishment of ecological preferences of different species for a wide range of parameters is discussed, and the development of an index that considers fertility classes, integrating biodiversity components is also discussed.
Priority: high
License: Unspecified
Bibliographic reference: ?
Comments: Amazing talk in the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative webinar, recorded. A lot of ASVs little names on soil and freshwater diatoms. Missed the beginning of the webinar where he was talking about Europe level data incl. different land use - arable, forest, city
Carlos Wetzel's soil and diatom data
Dataset link: ?
Region: Luxemburg +?Europe
Taxon: diatoms
Type: occurrence
Why is this important: Carlos E. Wetzel is a researcher at the Luxembourg Institute of Science and Technology. During the last decade he has authored and co-authored over 160 peer-reviewed articles regarding taxonomy and ecology of diatoms from many continents and environments, including rivers, lakes, soils, and marine environments. Carlos has been teaching numerous training courses on diatom ecology and taxonomy designed for biologists, technicians, and ecologists, contributing to the continuous improvement of the Water Framework Directive in Europe. His current project aims to show soil scientists the hidden diversity terrestrial diatoms and its potential use as bioindicators of soil conditions. While numerous studies have focused on the ecology of aquatic diatoms and their use in assessing water quality over the past decades, much less is known about the ecological behaviour of terrestrial diatoms and their sensitivity/tolerances to environmental factors. In this work, we explore the use of diatoms as indicators of soil condition by combining a traditional microscopic approach with high-throughput sequencing (HTS) metabarcoding techniques to show that terrestrial diatom communities can be used to indicate anthropogenic disturbance levels and soil fertility. This approach could serve as a tool for implementing future policies while enhancing soil biodiversity knowledge. In this talk I will emphasise the effects of taxonomy gaps and how this can be reduced for key species, as shown by preliminary results on the congruence between the information provided by gene sequencing and microscopic analysis, where the identity of some 'unclassified' taxa can be assigned using microscopic techniques. The establishment of ecological preferences of different species for a wide range of parameters is discussed, and the development of an index that considers fertility classes, integrating biodiversity components is also discussed.
Priority: high
License: Unspecified
Bibliographic reference: ?
Comments: Amazing talk in the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative webinar, recorded. A lot of ASVs little names on soil and freshwater diatoms. Missed the beginning of the webinar where he was talking about Europe level data incl. different land use - arable, forest, city
Dataholders contact information: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DsrNy8oAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao
Users contact info: dschigel