Origin and the evolution of diatoms through the integration of paleontology and phylogenetics
Diatoms, the prominent photosynthetic eucaryotes, have inhabited the world’s oceans for at least the past 120 Ma since their first appearance in the Lower Cretaceous. There are also records of older diatoms, from the Jurassic dating to ca. 172 Ma and ca. 165 Ma, however these are poorly documented. The predicted origin time of diatoms using evolutionary relationships (molecular phylogenetics) yiel
