📢 NEW PAPER: Tropical Glacier Streams Hide Undescribed Diatom Diversity

We’re excited to announce a new first-author paper of our PhD student Hristina Kochoska, just published in Diatom Research! The study explores one of Africa’s last tropical glacier-fed streams, draining from the Mt. Stanley Glacier in the Rwenzori Mountains of Uganda — a unique and vanishing habitat.

Using a combination of light and electron microscopy and DNA metabarcoding, the team discovered unexpectedly high diatom diversity in these sediments — and found that many species remain unnamed. One of the most common taxa was described as new to science:
🆕 Neidium rwenzoriense sp. nov.

The new species highlights how much biodiversity remains hidden in tropical cryospheric systems — ecosystems which are likely to disappear in our lifetime due to climate change. The study also provides an important reference point for future research into tropical glacier-fed streams, which have been largely neglected in diatom research.

📄 Kochoska et al. (2025): Glacier-fed stream diatoms (Bacillariophyta) from the Rwenzori Mountains, Uganda, with the description of one new species from the genus Neidium
🔗 Read the full paper here