Abstract
Diatoms are very useful environmental indicators in limnological and paleolimnological studies. Spanish reservoirs offer a valuable opportunity for the study of relationships between diatoms and environmental conditions, since these ecosystems are abundant in this country and the patterns of their regional limnology are well established. We report the results from a study carried out on diatom communities in 40 reservoirs from several Spanish water basins. More than 200 diatom taxa were found. A canonical correspondence analysis was applied to the abundance data of the most common taxa and the main physical and chemical variables. This analysis showed that mineralisation (conductivity and alkalinity) was the most important environmental factor explaining diatom distribution, while trophic state was the second most important. These results are similar to those in previous studies on phytoplankton in Spanish reservoirs. Conductivity and alkalinity optima of the selected taxa allow us to consider these taxa as good indicators of water mineral content in similar ecosystems.
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