Proc. R. Soc. B doi:10.1098/rspb.2008.1200 (2008)

Global warming is predicted to be bad for diatoms. Hungry and heavy as plankton go, they are expected to find themselves with fewer nutrients and sink more quickly as temperature gradients, and thus density gradients, grow, increasing the energy needed for mixing.

However, the total volume of diatoms in Lake Tahoe, on the California–Nevada border, did not change between 1982 and 2006, despite a warming in average air temperatures in the Tahoe Basin, report Monika Winder and her co-workers at the University of California, Davis. Instead, average diatom sizes fell from 67 micrometres to 35 micrometres, stemming the mean sinking speed and altering energy transfer through the food web.