Comparison between sedimentary and living diatoms in Lago Maggiore (N. Italy): Implications of using transfer functions.

We compared the recent history of living planktonic diatom assemblages in Lago Maggiore with the remains found in the topmost section of 14 sediment cores taken from the lake. Sediment samples showed a marked domination of planktonic taxa, but a significant proportion of benthic taxa was found in cores collected close to river mouths. Between-core variability in diatom assemblage and in diatom-inferred total phosphorus concentration was also estimated. The implications of our results for calibration data sets relating environmental variables to diatom assemblages are also discussed.