Diatomea
Sign in to saveA diatom (Neo-Latin diatoma) is any member of a large group comprising several genera of algae, specifically microalgae, found in the oceans, waterways and soils of the world. Living diatoms make up a significant portion of Earth's biomass. They generate about 20 to 50 percent of the oxygen produced on the planet each year, take in over 6.7 billion tonnes of silicon each year from the waters in which they live, and constitute nearly half of the organic material found in the oceans. The shells of dead diatoms are a significant component of marine sediment, and the entire Amazon basin is fertili
AI overview
Diatoms are microscopic algae found in oceans, waterways, and soils throughout the world that play a crucial role in Earth's life support systems. They produce roughly 20 to 50 percent of the planet's oxygen annually and make up nearly half of the organic material in oceans, making them essential to the survival of most life on Earth.
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Article
52 sectionsContents
- Overview
- Morphology
- Silicification
- Behaviour
- Phytochromes
- Life cycle
- Reproduction and cell size
- Cell division
- Sexual reproduction
- Sperm motility
- Degradation by microbes
- Ecology
- Distribution
- Growth
- Impact
- Reason for success
- Sources for collection
- Biogeochemistry
- Silica cycle
- Carbon cycle
- Urea cycle
- Other
- Taxonomy
- Genera and species
- Classes and orders
- Adl ''et al.'', 2019 treatment
- Evolution and fossil record
- Origin
- Earliest fossils
- Relation to grasslands
- Relation to climate
- Method of investigation
- Isotope records
- Diversification
- Turnover
- Genetics
- Expressed sequence tagging
- Genome sequencing
- Endosymbiotic gene transfer
- Horizontal gene transfer
- Genetic engineering
- Human uses
- Paleontology
- Industrial
- Nanotechnology
- Forensic
- History of discovery
- Gallery
- See also
- Notes
- References
- External links
A diatom (Neo-Latin diatoma) is any member of a large group comprising several genera of algae, specifically microalgae, found in the oceans, waterways and soils of the world. Living diatoms make up a significant portion of Earth's biomass. They generate about 20 to 50 percent of the oxygen produced on the planet each year, take in over 6.7 billion tonnes of silicon each year from the waters in which they live, and constitute nearly half of the organic material found in the oceans. The shells of dead diatoms are a significant component of marine sediment, and the entire Amazon basin is fertilized annually by 27 million tons of diatom shell dust transported by transatlantic winds from the African Sahara, much of it from the Bodélé Depression, which was once made up of a system of fresh-water lakes.
Diatoms are unicellular organisms: they occur either as solitary cells or in colonies, which can take the shape of ribbons, fans, zigzags, or stars. Individual cells range in size from 2 to 2000 micrometers. In the presence of adequate nutrients and sunlight, an assemblage of living diatoms doubles approximately every 24 hours by asexual multiple fission; the maximum life span of individual cells is about six days. Diatoms have two distinct shapes: a few (centric diatoms) are radially symmetric, while most (pennate diatoms) are broadly bilaterally symmetric.