D’Alelio et al. (2010) studied the life-cycle of a pennate diatom, Pseudo-nitzschia
multistriata, by looking at a 10-year time series of cell size and abundances in the
Gulf of Naples. They found that asexual and sexual stages occurred with remarkable
regularity. Cell sizes ranged from 75 to 30 μm, and large cell sizes (indicating
auxospore formation) occurred every 2 years (after ∼200 generations) with a
subsequent decrease in size over the following period. This is the first report of such
regulation of cell division and sexual reproduction across a regional population in a
diatom. The mechanism of this regulation is unknown.
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