European Diatom Database - French Massif Central TP Dataset

The European Diatom Database (EDDI) is a web-based information system designed to enhance the application of diatom analysis to problems of surface water acidification, eutrophication and climate change.

This dataset includes 28 surface sediment samples from lakes in the Massif Central region of France. The lakes are diverse in their origin, volcanic or glacial, and their morphometry, size and depth, from deep crater lakes to shallow glacial lakes. They are situated along an altitudinal gradient from 630-1250 m a.s.l. The lakes have circumneutral to alkaline pH and cover a long total phosphorus gradient from ultra-oligotrophic to hypertrophic conditions. Surface sediment samples were collected between 1996 and 1998 and diatoms were counted by Patrick Rioual. A diatom-alkalinity transfer function was developed from these data and details are given in Rioual (2000). Palaeolimnological studies of long sediment cores, spanning at least the last glacial/interglacial cycle, have been undertaken at a number of these sites (Pailles, 1989; Reille et al., 2000; Rioual et al., 2001).