Young ISDR

How do you define a new species of Nitzschia ? An example from an Ethiopian crater lake By Dai Grady* Around 50 km south east of the hectic Addis Ababa (Ethiopia) is a group of maars – explosion crater lakes – surrounded by hotels on the lake edges and populated by people practicing water sports. Around 65 m below the water surface at one of these lakes (Lake Babogaya ; Figure 1), however, are laminated sediments that have accumulated through the Holocene as a result of the seasonal mixing of lake waters in the dry season and stratification in the wet season. These laminated sediments were an important part of my recent Ph.D. where I used diatoms to reconstruct past environmental change in the area over the last 5,500 years. Due to their short life-cycles, rapid dispersal and colonisation diatom fossil remains accumulate in lake sediments and can be used to effectively reconstruct environmental change. But, shortly into my Ph.D., I realised I was going to ...

A palaeoecological tale of Cyclotella paleo-ocellata from Lake Kinneret in Israel by Hannah Hartung*   Once upon a time, there was a lake called Kinneret. Storytellers are not sure if this lake was called like this, because it is shaped like a harp (which is “ kinnṓr ” in Hebrew) or because a bronze-aged city close by was called Kinneret. Perhaps you may have heard about this lake (also called Sea of Galilee or Lake Tiberias), as the lake and its surroundings have served as an important backdrop for much of human history in the region, especially in biblical times. A good example is the miracle of Jesus walking over the lake. A few facts: Lake Kinneret is an old lake, lying 210 m below (!) sea level in the northern part of the Jordan Rift Valley, which is still tectonically active (Figure 1). The lake represents the largest freshwater body in the whole region. As you can imagine, this lake plays therefore an important role for the natural fresh-wa...