Tropical South America Diatom Database (TSADB)

Determining the mechanisms of community assembly forms the foundation of biogeography and community ecology. Studies of the biodiversity and distribution of Neotropical macro-organisms have revealed the roles of environmental, spatial, and historical factors in structuring communities at different spatial and temporal scales, but the role of these factors play for species and communities on microorganisms are still poorly known. Diatoms are a very species-rich group of algae, disperse widely, and sensitive to environmental variation due to their position in the base of aquatic food webs. Here, we present the Tropical South American Diatom Database (TSADB) which contains geographical and ecological information of species across lentic and lotic environments, including predictors that describe local (limnological) and regional (geo-climatic) factors. The database can be used to tackle fundamental questions in macroecology, including metacommunity ecology and biogeography theories that for...