Signy and Livingston diatom and water chemistry

The response of diatom species to environmental gradients was assessed
by constructing this dataset of diatom abundance and water chemistry
from 59 maritime Antarctic lakes.

Freshwater diatom species composition is strongly related to lake
water chemistry. Recently, attempts have been made to quantify these
relationships using multivariate statistical methods. This approach
generally involves the collection of new data in the form of a
training, or calibration, dataset, relating a modern lake surface
sediment diatom assemblage to contemporary water
chemistry. Environmental variables which are strongly related to
diatom distribution can be identified, and the relationships
quantified. These relationships, or transfer functions, can then be
applied to fossil diatom assemblages from sediment cores to provide
environmental reconstructions of key hydrochemical variables. There
are a number of unusual and unique diatom forms in the
Antarctic. This, together with a lack of autecological information,
makes it necessary to construct a training set specifically for the
Antarctic as an essential prerequisite to diatom-based environmental
reconstruction. To this end, surface sediment and water chemistry data
were obtained from lakes in two areas of the maritime Antarctic. These
were 45 sites from the Byers Peninsula, Livingston Island, South
Shetland Islands and 14 sites on Signy Island, South Orkney Islands.

For a more detailed description of this dataset refer to Jones,
Juggins and Ellis-Evans (1993) Antarctic Science 5(4): 339-348.