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Abstract
Cavinula lilandae, a small new diatom from the Congo Basin in Central Africa, was observed in acid riverine habitats in an almost pristine tropical rain forest. It occurred in a periphytic diatom community dominated by Eunotia spp. and Fragilariforma strangulata (Zanon) Williams & Round. Beside the type locality in the Baomba Stream, and the closely located Lilanda River, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, this taxon was also observed in a small river in Zambia, north of the Bangweulu swamps. Cavinula lilandae is distinguished from other taxa within the genus Cavinula D.G. Mann & A.J. Stickle by the following characteristics: uniseriate striae becoming irregularly biseriate near the poles; irregularly formed areolae; and irregular depressions in the valve face close to the axial area which are not perforating the valve face.
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Acknowledgements
The material studied was sampled during the Boyekoli Ebale Congo 2010 expedition, organized by the Congo 2010 Consortium, composed of the University of Kisangani, the Royal Museum for Central Africa, the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences and the National Botanic Garden of Belgium. The expedition was funded by the Belgian Development Aid and the Belgian Science Policy. We are grateful to F. Darchambeau for providing the physical and chemical data at the Lilanda and Baombo site, and to L. Caljon for the technical assistance. Many thanks also to all members of the expedition and to the people from the villages of Yaekela and Lilanda for their support, making the sampling possible and successful. The material from Zambia was collected by M. Kennedy, S. Lowe and the third author, J.C. Taylor, under the auspices of the SAFRASS project funded by the European Commission ACP Programme. J.C. Taylor is a beneficiary of a mobility grant from the Marie Curie Actions of the European commission co-financed by the Belgian Federal Science Policy.