Modern Trends in Diatom Identification: Fundamentals and Applications

This chapter introduces the antecedents, motivation, and necessity of the use of automatic identification methods in diatom taxonomy. Expert biologists have a repetitive and laborious identification mission. The principal taxonomic features used to describe and classify diatoms relate to the morphology and texture of frustule. Classical taxonomic diagnosis is carried out by means of identification keys or by visual comparison with respect to standard preparations or reference iconographies. Automatic diatom identification remains an open challenge because, for instance, many diatoms that have been known by the same species for decades have subsequently been split into different species, while on the other hand the emergence of new species is continuous. The very promising results of the new deep learning techniques together with the development of new optical devices in microscopy allow to predict a significant advance in the field.