Autecology of Freshwater Algae

Overview and Introduction

The purpose of this webpage is to provide a location for posting of datafiles with ecological information on freshwater algae living in rivers, lakes, streams and wetlands. This site helps fulfill the objectives of a group of algal ecologists who met at the 2002 Annual Meeting of the North American Benthological Society to discuss ways to develop and share ecological data on freshwater algae. (See meeting notes prepared by Jennifer Winter.) 

This site is available for posting a wide variety of information, including text files, spreadsheets, databases, presentations and links to internet resources.  Anyone can contribute. Just click the submit link below and follow the instructions. In addition to providing a data file and / or web address, you will be asked for a brief description, including pertinent references, and your name, institution, and email address. Files are added to the website automatically and will be immediately available. We recommend adding a .txt or other type of file that will provide contact information such as your email and mailing address, and other information describing your data files.

One or more related files are submitted as a group. Contributors will be asked to provide a name and description for the group as well as names and titles for the files. Both will be used on the website to label and describe the data and files provided. To post a website link to the data files, simply provide the information required on the "submit" page, except for file names.

This website is administered by the Phycology Section of the Patrick Center for Environmental Research at the Academy of Natural Sciences, in Philadelphia.  All content will be publicly available for download and use.  Content of files, and instructions for opening files or using applications associated with the files, are the responsibility of the contributor.  Website administrators will not provide support beyond that necessary to add files and information to the site.

Please contact the Phycology Section at with questions about submitting files. In particular, we are able to update or remove files you have already submitted.

Click on a link below to browse or submit data.

  • submit algal autecological data
    (Submitting on this page has been temporarily suspended. If you wish to post a message, please contact us by email; we can post the information for you.)
  • browse algal autecological data

Browse Algal Autecological Data

Relationships of soft-bodied algae to water-quality and habitat characteristics in U.S. rivers: analysis of the NAWQA program data set - Added on 10/25/2005


Marina Potapova

Relationships of soft-bodied algae to water-quality and habitat characteristics in U.S. rivers: analysis of the NAWQA program data set. PCER report #05-08

  • Relationships of soft-bodied algae to water-quality and habitat characteristics in U.S. rivers - Report_October20.pdf
  • Appendix 1: List of soft-bodied algal taxa recorded in NAWQA samples collected from 1993 to 2003 - Appendix1.xls
  • Appendix 2: WA optima and tolerances of soft-bodied algal taxa for water-quality characteristics - Appendix2.xls
  • Appendix 3: WA optima and tolerances of soft-bodied algal taxa for habitat characteristics - Appendix3.xls
  • Appendix 4: LR optima & tolerances of soft-bodied algae for water-quality & habitat characteristics - Appendix4.xls

Algal Biovolumes from the USGS NAWQA Program - Added on 11/1/2002


Don Charles

Biovolumes of algal taxa in samples collected by the USGS NAWQA program

Conductivity and major ions - optima and tolerances - NAWQA - Added on 5/7/2003


Marina Potapova

Conductivity and major ion abundance weighted mean (AWM) and tolerance values for 638 diatom taxa found in 2674 USGS NAWQA samples collected throughout the US.

Water chemistry parameters and site information- NJ Algae Indicators Project- NJDEP - Added on 7/25/2004


Karin Ponader

Site information, water chemistry parameters and physical site characteristics for 45 sites sampled for benthic algae in New Jersey during 2000-2002.

Water chemistry parameters and site information- NJ Algae Indicators Project (NJDEP): Coastal Plain Study - Added on 8/30/2007


Karin Ponader

Site information, water chemistry parameters and physical site characteristics for 32 sites sampled for benthic algae from natural and artificial Substrate in the New Jersey Coastal Plain during 2003-2004.

Total Phosphorus indicator values for river diatoms from the Northern Piedmont Ecoregion - Added on 9/20/2004


Marina Potapova

Total Phosphorus indicator values for diatoms from the rivers of the Northern Piedmont Ecoregion, USA, published in Potapova, M.G., D.F. Charles, K.C. Ponader, and D.M. Winter. 2004. Quantifying species indicator values for trophic diatom indices: a comparison of approaches. Hydrobiologia, 517: 25-41.

  • TP indicator values for the Northern Piedmont Ecoregion - TableIndValues.xls

  • Excel spreadsheet

Distribution and AWM's (pH, SRP, BOD, Cl and health) for river diatoms in eastern U.S. - Added on 5/10/2006


Don Charles

Occurrence and abundance weighted mean values of health, pH, SRP, BOD and Cl for 177 diatom taxa occurring in 15 or more samples. Data are based on 186 diatom samples collected at 116 sites from 47 rivers in the eastern U.S. Table 5. from: Charles, D.F., F.W. Acker, D.D. Hart, C.W. Reimer, and P.B. Cotter. 2006. Large-scale regional variation in diatom-water chemistry relationships: rivers of the eastern United States. Hydrobiologia 561:27-57.

Diatom Film Clips - Added on 4/30/2003


Stan Cohn

This link shows some quick time clips of some of the diatom physiological assays used in our lab.