A Workshop on Live Diatoms
Maurice Moss is a well-known figure in the Club. Until his recent retirement he was a senior lecturer in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Surrey. Two of his great interests are fungi and diatoms, and he has both knowledge and enthusiasm, and the ability to communicate. So I was one of the first to sign up for a one day workshop on diatoms in the well-equipped laboratories of 'Surrey U'
After coffee and biscuits in the common room, we adjourned to the lab, where Eileen Cox, of the Natural History Museum gave us an illustrated talk on identifying live diatoms. The beautiful patterns produced by the dots and striae on the frustule of the dead and cleaned plant are well-known, but many of us encounter these organisms in situations where it is difficult to prepare them, and in any case there is much to be said for studying them live.
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Eileen Cox talks while Maurice works the slide projector |
Eileen illustrated her talk with slides, and showed how the pattern of the chloroplasts is often enough to identify species, particularly when combined with the presence and position of pyrenoids, and indeed early work by a pioneer in this field, for long neglected, is now being recognised.
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Left - Joan Tubbs and Eileen Cox chat over a cup of
coffee. |
After a break for a picnic lunch we returned to the lab, where Maurice had setup a number of samples from a wide variety of habitats, ranging from a saline part of the Severn Estuary to the acid sphagnum bogs at Thursley Common. We spent the rest of the afernoon examining these, and with the help of Maurice and Eileen identifying them and studying their many points of interest.
At the end of a great day Allan Brinkman proposed thanks to Maurice and Eileen which received an enthusiastic round of applause from the participants.
