Antarctic Record (Mar 1965)

PRELIMINARY REPORT ON DIATOMS FROM SOUTH GEORGIA

  • Hiroshi FUKUSHIMA

DOI
https://doi.org/10.15094/00007376
Journal volume & issue
no. 24
pp. 1914 – 1926

Abstract

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Diatoms of South Georgia were reported in four papers up to the present, one by P. F. REINSCH (1890), one by G. W. F. CARLSON (1913) and the remaining two by KO-BAYASHI (1963 and 1965). REINSCH recorded 19 kinds (including verieties and species) and CARLSON recorded 45 kinds (also including varieties and species). KO-BAYASHI investigated 3 kinds of diatoms (1 in 1963 and 2 in 1965) in the study of variations of Antarctic diatoms. As the Antarctic Research Expedition of the Tokyo University of Fisheries, headed by the late Professor Takeharu KUMAGORI, gave the writer the materials collected at South Georgia during the research from 1961 to 1962, the writer reports the results of investigation on 3 specimens (Nos. 1, 2 and 7). The materials are the same as those investigated by KO-BAYASHI. As a result of this investigation, the writer found 49 kinds of diatoms. Therefore, the total number of kinds in the existing record and the writer's record of South Georgia diatoms becomes 93. Among these diatoms, species of South Georgia were Achnanthes mulleri and Navicula megacuspidata, that of the Antarctic inland water was Navicula muticopsis, and that of the Antarctic ocean was Cocconeis inperatrix. Even when the endemic species of South Georgia were regarded as Antarctic species, Antarctic diatoms were only 4 species, that is less than 10% of all. Judging from this fact, diatoms of South Georgia are almost cosmopolitan species and not characteristic to the Antarctic waters. Besides, some species that are known to be abundant in northern Europe were found though in a small quantity ; thay are Achnanthes plonensis, Eunotia robusta var. tetraodon, Navicula cocconeiformis and Navicula pseudoscutiformis.