Diatom Gliding Motility

The book will cover a broad range of work describing our current state of understanding on the topic, including: historic knowledge and misconceptions of motility; evolution of diatom motility; diatom ecology & physiology; cell biology and biochemistry of diatom motility, anatomy of motile diatoms; observations of diatom motile behavior; diatom competitive ability, unique forms of diatom motility as found in the genus Eunotia; and Models of Motility.

This volume is the first book attempting to gather such information surrounding diatom motility into one volume focusing on this single topic.  Readers will be able to gather both the current state of understanding on the potential mechanisms and ecological regulators of motility, as well as possible models and approaches used to help determine how diatoms accomplish such varied behaviors as diurnal movements, accumulation into areas of light, niche partitioning to increase species success.  Given the fact that diatoms remain one of the most ecologically crucial cells in aquatic ecosystems, our hope is that this volume will act as a springboard towards future research into diatom motility and even better resolution of some of the issues in motility.

Stanley Cohn, Ph.D. is a Professor Emeritus of Biology at DePaul University, Chicago.    His lab has been studying ecological conditions affecting diatom cell movement for over 30 years, focusing on the responses to changes in light, temperature, surface and other ecological factors.  He received the Royal Society of Arts Silver Medal and the DePaul University Excellence in Teaching Award. 

Kalina Manoylov is professor in Biology at Georgia College and State University and visiting professor at the University of Iowa Lakeside lab. She has a PhD in Zoology and Ecology, Evolutionary Biology and Behavior from Michigan State University. She uses algal-community data to understand environmental changes and anthropogenic effects in different aquatic environments. Her area of expertise is algal and diatom taxonomy and algal ecology. She has published more than 30 peer- reviewed articles, half of them with her students. She is the editor for PhytoKeys and Frontiers Plant Science.

Richard Gordon's involvement with diatoms goes back to 1970 with his capillarity model for their gliding motility, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. He later worked on a diffusion limited aggregation model for diatom morphogenesis, which led to the first paper ever published on diatom nanotechnology in 1988. He organized the first workshop on diatom nanotech in 2003. His other research is on computed tomography algorithms, HIV/AIDS prevention, and embryogenesis.