Saúl Blanco

Saúl Blanco
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Saúl verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
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Saúl verified their affiliation via an institutional email.
University of Leon | UNILEON · Department of Biodiversity and Environment Management

Ph. D.
http://institutos.unileon.es/laboratorio-de-diatomologia/

About

289
Publications
146,790
Reads
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6,220
Citations
Introduction
Main research interests: - Taxonomy and ecology of freshwater diatoms - Biogeography of continental microalgae - Limnology of shallow lakes. Principales líneas de trabajo: Taxonomía y ecología de diatomeas de agua dulce. Índices diatomológicos. Bioindicadores. Índices bióticos de la calidad del agua. Biomonitorización. Directiva Marco del Agua. Microalgas en biorreactores. Depuración de aguas residuales.
Additional affiliations
October 2018 - March 2020
Diatom Lab
Position
  • Professor (Assistant)
Description
  • Diatomology
March 2018 - present
Diatom Lab
Position
  • Laboratory Assistant
January 2018 - March 2018
-
Position
  • Active Job Search
Education
September 1995 - July 2000
University of Leon
Field of study
  • Biology

Publications

Publications (289)
Article
Full-text available
A factorial experiment was carried out in order to assess the effects of four treatment steps in diatom processing techniques (the quantity of hydrogen peroxide added to the sample, the time allowed to the digestion reaction, the use of centrifugation and the method used to settle the frustules onto the coverslip) on different aspects of the qualit...
Article
Full-text available
Biotic indices based on macro-invertebrates and diatoms are frequently used to diagnose ecological quality in watercourses, but few published works have assessed their effectiveness as biomonitors of the concentration of micropollutants. A biological survey performed at 188 sites in the basin of the River Duero in north-western Spain. Nineteen diat...
Article
Cymbella ectorii sp. nov. is a new freshwater diatom described from phytobenthos samples of Miño River (Galicia, NW of Iberian Peninsula). This new diatom is illustrated and discussed based on different samples collected in July-August 2015 in Miño River as it passes through the city of Ourense and was found four years later (2019) at the same site...
Article
Full-text available
Diatoms, a highly diverse group, are sensitive indicators of aquatic environmental conditions, yet doubts persist regarding species distribution and distance-based factors influencing their populations. This study explores the relationship between geographical distance and the morphological and genetic differences among Achnanthidium minutissimum p...
Article
Full-text available
This research presents a significant contribution to the methodologies and protocols for studying diatom communities in cryoconite holes on glaciers. Cryoconite holes are unique microenvironments found on glacial surfaces that support intricate microbial ecosystems, with diatoms playing a pivotal role in these communities. The refined methodologies...
Article
Full-text available
Abstract Aim To evaluate the patterns of stream diatom beta diversity in islands vs. continents across scales, to relate community similarities with spatial and environmental distances and to investigate the role of island characteristics in shaping insular diatom beta diversity. Location Africa, America, Europe, and Pacific. Time period Present....
Article
Full-text available
Se estudiaron los hábitos alimentarios y parámetros morfométricos de Potamotrygon magdalenae en el Embalse del Guájaro, localizado en la cuenca baja del río Magdalena, departamento del Atlántico, Colombia. Fueron recolectados 24 individuos durante el mes de abril de 2018 mediante pesca tradicional y su contenido estomacal se evaluó mediante el índi...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Diversity of Halamphora (Diatomae)
Article
Full-text available
Theuseof diatomsas ecologicalindicatorsof waterqualityis wellestablishedglobally,withnumerousstudiessupportingtheeffectivenessof diatom-basedbioticindicesformonitoringtheecologicalstatusof freshwaters.Thesemetricstypicallyrelyontherelativeabundanceof “indicatortaxa,”theiroverallsensitivityto impairment,andtheirenvironmentaloptimumalonga pollutiongr...
Article
Full-text available
The initial valves of two Cymbella species are observed under a scanning electron microscope , and the perizonium ultrastructure of Cymbella is revealed for the first time. The perizonium is composed of alternate nodes and internodes and lacks transverse perizonium bands. Four new species, Cymbella apiculatophora sp. nov., C. hunanensis sp. nov., C...
Article
Full-text available
The objective of this study was to explore the environmental factors having the greatest influence on the distribution and abundance of epipelic diatom species in different wetlands in southern Spain. We previously defined four groups of conductivity categories: fresh (< 0.8 mS cm⁻¹), oligosaline (< 8 mS cm⁻¹), mesosaline (8–30 mS cm⁻¹) and eusalin...
Preprint
Full-text available
The initial valves of two Cymbella species are observed under the scanning electron microscope and the perizonium ultrastructure of Cymbella is revealed for the first time. The perizonium is composed of alternate nodes and internodes and lacks transverse perizonium bands. Four new species, Cymbella apiculatophora sp. nov., C. hunanensis sp. nov., C...
Article
Full-text available
Diatoms are commonly used in environmental assessments to detect pollution and eutrophication. The specific pollution sensitivity index (SPI) is one of the most frequently used indices, which assigns scores to diatom taxa based on their sensitivity to pollution. The study analyzed diatom communities in the Duero River basin in Spain to examine the...
Article
Full-text available
For the first time, we propose a diatom-based biomonitoring index (BDIAR) for Algerian Rivers. BDIAR is based on water conductivity and diatom autecological profiles. Our study was conducted along the Coastal Central Constantine watershed, from which 78 samples of diatoms and water were collected. Weighted averaging method was used to determine the...
Article
Full-text available
Aim: Understanding the roles of deterministic and stochastic processes in community assembly is essential for gaining insights into species biogeographical patterns. However, the way community assembly processes operate is still not fully understood, especially in oceanic islands. In this study, we examine the importance of assembly processes in sh...
Poster
Full-text available
In Spain there are two classic diatomological collections of great value and taxonomic importance, one belonging to the naturalist Florentino Azpeitia (1859-1934), conserved in the Institute Tecnological GeoMinero of Madrid (ITGE) and the second one to the botanist Ernesto Caballero y Bellido (1859-1934) at the Natural Science Museum (Madrid). They...
Article
Full-text available
Diatoms are microalgae, known to present several characteristics that make them excellent bioindicators. In this study, we analyzed the epiphytic diatom communities of ponds, with the aim of exploring the genetic variability explained by physical, chemical or geographical variables. We selected 77 lakes within the Spanish part of the Duero River Ba...
Article
Kaçkar Mountains is located in the Eastern Black Sea Region in Türkiye. The mountainous area includes granite and volcanic rocks influencing water conditions. Moçar Lake is located at 40°42'35'' N and 40°54'51'' E in the Verçenik Valley with an altitude of 3.060 m. a.s.l. The samples were collected in July 2015 from epilithic and epipelic substrata...
Chapter
This work studies the behaviour of diatoms in artificial culture environments and analyses the biodeposition of diatom frustules in different sizes of mixed recycled aggregates. In order to be able to use this biodeposition as a surface treatment and improve the properties of this material for its effective use in recycled concrete. Surface analyse...
Article
Typology systems are frequently used in applied and fundamental ecology and are relevant for environmental monitoring and conservation. They aggregate ecosystems into discrete types based on biotic and abiotic variables, assuming that ecosystems of the same type are more alike than ecosystems of different types with regard to a specific property of...
Preprint
Diatoms are microalgae, known to present several characteristics that make them excellent bioindicators. In this study, we analyzed the epiphytic diatom communities of shallow lakes, with the aim of exploring the genetic variability explained by physical, chemical or geographical variables. We selected 77 lakes within the Spanish part of the Duero...
Article
Full-text available
The time required for diatom assemblages to integrate the abiotic variables of the aquatic environment has been subject of discussion for many years, with contrasting opinions as shown by field observations and experiments. Numerous diatom-based water quality indices are being used in the bioassessment of freshwaters; one of the most widely used (S...
Article
Full-text available
Typology systems are frequently used in applied and fundamental ecology and are relevant for environmental monitoring and conservation. They aggregate ecosystems into discrete types based on biotic and abiotic variables, assuming that ecosystems of the same type are more alike than ecosystems of different types with regard to a specific property of...
Article
Full-text available
Increased salt concentration is one of the most widespread problems affecting freshwater worldwide. Aquatic communities, and in particular periphytic diatoms, react to this alteration in water quality by modifying their structural parameters and physiology at the individual level, which is commonly manifested by the appearance of teratological form...
Article
Full-text available
Aim The species–area relationship (SAR) is one of the most distinctive biogeographic patterns, but global comparisons of the SARs between island and mainland are lacking for microbial taxa. Here, we explore whether the form of the SAR and the drivers of species richness, including area, environmental heterogeneity, climate and physico‐chemistry, di...
Article
Full-text available
We developed the Trophic Diatom Index for Reservoirs (TDIR), the first index proposal for water trophic quality assessment of tropical reservoirs in Brazil. Furthermore, we applied four borrowed diatom indices to compare their performances with TDIR. The proposal development considered a cali- bration set from surface sediment diatoms (n=113) from...
Article
Full-text available
The present study is based on the identification of benthic diatoms sampled along the Coastal Central Constantine in northeastern of Algeria. Our work aims to address relationships between environmental variables and characterize the spatial and temporal distribution of the diatom flora. Diatoms and samples for physicochemical analysis were collect...
Article
This work aimed at integrating the anaerobic digestion of food waste (FW) with photosynthetic biogas upgrading at pilot scale in order to obtain a high quality biomethane and a nutrient-laden algal biomass as the main byproducts from FW treatment. The performance of a 100 L anaerobic digester treating food waste integrated via raw biogas and digest...
Article
Full-text available
The treatment of pig manure is a major environmental issue, and photobioreactors containing consortia of microalgae and bacteria have proven to be a promising and sustainable treatment alternative. This work studies the effect of Cu, Zn and As, three toxic elements frequently present in piggery wastewater, on the performance and microbiome of photo...
Article
Full-text available
Anaerobic digestion can biotransform the biodegradable fraction of sewage sludge into biogas, while the symbiotic action of algal-bacterial consortia can remove both the CO2 and H2S from biogas and nutrients from digestate. A 100 L anaerobic digester operated at 20 days of retention time coupled with a 180 L high-rate algal pond (HRAP) engineered t...
Poster
Full-text available
The time required for diatom assemblages to integrate the abiotic variables of the aquatic environment has been subject of discussion for many years, with contrasting opinions as shown by field observations and experiments. Numerous diatom-based water quality indices are being used in the bioassessment of freshwaters; one of the most widely used (S...
Article
Gomphosphenia minima sp. nov. is a new freshwater diatom described from central Portugal, found in samples from a mountain stream. The species is described here based on light and scanning electron microscopy. This taxon is compared with other Gomphosphenia taxa such as G. fontinalis, G. lingulatiformis and G. tackei. Gomphosphenia minima sp. nov....
Article
Full-text available
Background and aims – Kützing separated the genus Achnanthidium from the genus Achnanthes based on two species: Achnanthes minutissima and Achnanthidium microcephalum . These two genera were distinguished by the presence of stalks in the Achnanthes genus and their absence in Achnanthidium . Before electron microscopy, the difference between Achnant...
Article
Two morphologically similar populations of Didymosphenia were reported from the West Branch of the Farmington River, Connecticut, USA in 2014 and 2016. We described one of them as a new species, D. hullii. The other was observed subsequently in late 2016 and resembled D. geminata, but given the worldwide nuisance characteristic of this species, the...
Article
Nowadays, piggery wastewater (PWW) management still represents an unsolved global environmental problem. Photosynthetic processes have emerged as an innovative biological platform capable of performing a cost-effective treatment of wastewater with a concomitant assimilation of nutrients into biomass. In this work, the performance of a purple photot...
Article
Traditional microscope imaging techniques are unable to retrieve the complete dynamic range of a diatom species with complex silica-based cell walls and multi-scale patterns. In order to extract details from the diatom, multi-exposure images are captured at variable exposure settings using microscopy techniques. A recent innovation shows that image...
Article
The genus Hyalosira Kützing was recently split and emended based on morphology and molecular phylogeny but many uniseriate taxa could not be resolved. All populations examined in that study had one rimoportula on each valve (i.e., 1+1 in the cell). Recent collections from Turkey, Australia, and Micronesia had uniseriate taxa with different numbers...
Article
Background and objective: Training a deep convolutional neural network (CNN) for automatic image classification requires a large database with images of labeled samples. However, in some applications such as biology and medicine only a few experts can correctly categorize each sample. Experts are able to identify small changes in shape and texture...
Article
The Krka River is located at Balkan Peninsula in the Dinaric region of Croatia and it is a typical groundwater-fed karst river characterized by an unusual phenomenon-tufa. Tufa designates porous CaCO3 deposits forming under specific physical and chemical conditions and hosting very diverse freshwater biota. Karst springs are considered one of the m...
Article
Full-text available
Delicatophycus wulingensis sp. nov., D. qinghainensis sp. nov., and D. menyuanensis sp. nov., are described, illustrated, and compared to similar taxa. Two types of apical pore fields (APFs) in the genus Cymbella are defined. The three new Delicatophycus all possess the type II APF found in some species of Cymbella, i.e. the APF is divided by the d...
Article
Fragilaria construens var. subsalina is a common diatom found in a wide variety of aquatic systems worldwide. It was described by Hustedt (1925) from brackish waters in Oldesloe, Germany; a lectotype specimen was established by Simonsen (1987). We analysed the ultrastructure of specimens from the lectotype material by means of light (LM) and scanni...
Article
Representatives of the Achnanthidium minutissimum (Kütz.) Czarn. complex are common and widespread diatoms in Poland. The following species were included in this study: Achnanthidium affine (Grunow) Czarn., A. caledonicum (Lange-Bert.) Lange-Bert., A. eutrophilum (Lange-Bert.) Lange-Bert., A. exile (Kütz.) Hérib., A. jackii Rabenh., A. lineare W. S...
Article
Full-text available
Citation: Turiel, S.; Garrido-Cardenas, J.A.; Gómez-Serrano, C.; Acién, F.G.; Carretero-Paulet, L.; Blanco, S. A Polyphasic Characterisation of Tetradesmus almeriensis sp. nov. (Chlorophyta: Scenedesmaceae). Abstract: The microalga Tetradesmus almeriensis, previously known as Scenedesmus almeriensis, has been isolated and cultivated as a highly pro...
Article
Full-text available
In the ablation zone of glacier habitats, cryoconite holes are known to harbor diverse microbial communities, including unique diatom floras distinct from those of surrounding aquatic and terrestrial systems. Besides descriptive studies, little is known about the diversity of cryoconite dia-toms and their response to environmental stressors, partic...
Article
An Encyonema population collected in the Zambeze River near the Victoria Falls, Namibia, is here described and illustrated in detail with the aid of LM and SEM microscopy. This taxon had already been presented in the literature under the name E. volkii, the reasons leading to treat this species as a new, independent taxon are here discussed. Encyon...
Article
The domestic wastewater treatment performance of an integrated anoxic-aerobic photobioreactor with biomass settling and recycling, coupled with anaerobic digestion of the produced bacterial-algal biomass and biogas upgrading in the photobioreactor was investigated. Hydraulic retention time in the photobioreactor initially was 4 days (stage I and II...
Article
During a survey of freshwater diatoms from Mojiang River, Chebaling Nature Preserve in Shaoguan City, Shixing County, Guangdong Province, China, a new Encyonema species, Encyonema chebalingense sp. nov., was discovered. Based on observations with light and scanning electron microscopy, a detailed morphological description of E. chebalingense is her...
Article
Full-text available
The Upper Paraná River floodplain is one of the few remaining non-dammed stretches in Brazil. It has a typical fluvial dynamics represented by the flood pulse and a highly complex habitat, which allows the existence and maintenance of a great biodiversity, including diatom species. As it happens in tropical lowland environments, also in this floodp...
Article
Full-text available
Benthic diatoms have traditionally been used as bioindicators of aquatic ecosystems. Because diatom-based monitoring of water quality is required by European legislation, molecular-based methods had emerged as useful alternatives to classical methods based on morphological identification using light microscopy. The aim of this study was to test the...
Article
Diatoms are important organisms in freshwater ecosystems due to their position as primary producers and therefore, analyzing their assemblages provides relevant information on ecosystem functioning. Diatoms have historically been identified based on morphological traits, which is time-consuming and requires well-trained specialists. Nevertheless, D...
Article
Full-text available
Benthic diatoms are well known bioindicators of water quality, used in many aquatic ecosystems. Since diatom-based monitoring of water quality is required by European legislation, the search for methods that facilitate this task has become more relevant. The aim of this study was to test the reliability of DNA metabarcoding combined with high-throu...
Article
The diatoms have intricate silica-based cell walls with multi scale patterns. High Dynamic Range (HDR) imaging is widely used to examine the 3D structure of diatoms for recovering the wide range of contrast and brightness. In order to construct a HDR image of a diatom, multiple images of the specimen are taken at different exposure settings with br...
Article
The descriptions of the new species Cymbella balkii sp. nov. and C. yerlii sp. nov. were given in this study. The species were found in a karstic limnocrene spring which is one of the most important sources of Sakarya River. Cymbella balkii sp. nov. is very similar to C. pervarians, C. simonsenii, C. percymbiformis, C. perparva, C. alpestris and C....
Article
Pinnularia qinghainensis Bing Liu & S. Blanco sp. nov. Valves linear with broadly rounded apices, dimensions (n=31): 35–70 μm long, 8–11 μm wide. Sternum narrow, widening towards central area. Central area hexagonal with three forms: reaching both margins, meeting one margin and bordering the other with few short striae, or bordering both margins...
Article
Three innovative operational strategies were successfully evaluated to improve the quality of biomethane in an outdoors pilot scale photobioreactor interconnected to an external absorption unit: i) the use of a greenhouse during winter conditions, ii) a direct CO2 stripping in the photobioreactor via air stripping during winter conditions and iii)...
Article
Full-text available
Diatoms are important organisms in freshwater ecosystems due to their position as primary producers and therefore, analyzing their communities provides relevant information on ecosystem functioning. Diatoms have historically been identified based on morphological traits, which is time-consuming and requires well-trained specialists. Nevertheless, D...
Article
Full-text available
The diatom Berkeleya transfretana is described as a new species from samples collected at Playa Punta Sauciño, an intertidal coastal area in Ceuta, North Africa. Its main features are the comparatively small size in relation to other Berkeleya species and the very fine and dense striae pattern (more than 40 striae per 10 µm). The new species is her...
Article
The performance of an anoxic-aerobic microalgal-bacterial system treating synthetic food waste digestate at 10 days of hydraulic retention time via nitrification-denitrification under increasing digestate concentrations of 25%, 50%, and 100%(v/v) was assessed during Stages I, II and III, respectively. The system supported adequate treatment without...
Book
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This guide is available at: http://www.lifeinvasaqua.com/main-files/uploads/2020/11/LIBRO-ESPECIES-INVASORAS-INGLES-FINAL.pdf
Article
Gomphonema alavariense sp. nov. is a new freshwater diatom described in Portugal from phytobenthos samples in an urban pond located in Aveiro (Portugal). This new diatom is illustrated and discussed based on different samples collected in July-August 2017 from Santo António Park pond in the city centre. This taxon was compared with other Gomphonema...
Article
Full-text available
Background: Due to their isolation, islands offer excellent areas for the study of distribution of benthic diatoms. On the other hand, diatoms bearing canal raphe have received less attention compared to other groups of diatoms such as Navicula, Pinnularia or Amphora. Questions: Is it possible that thermal springs on islands offer a refuge for inf...
Article
Is a rare diatom relevant for Brazilian reservoirs? Planktonic diatom data sets were compared within different rarity categories to verify their responses using the weighted average (WA) approach. Our hypothesis is to proportionally reach an increased performance for the WA model by reducing the taxa weight according to their categories considering...