Diatoms are single-celled organisms that live in water, and can provide information about water quality. We wanted to know how the 2017 Brian Head Fire affected stream quality in southern Utah, but diatom morphology is difficult to learn in a short period of time. However, diatoms can be identified from their DNA even without training in morphological analysis. We collected diatoms from 4 streams within the watersheds affected by the Brian Head Fire then extracted DNA from all the diatom communities. We used Next Generation Sequencing to identify over 14,753 thousand operational taxonomic units (OTU) associated with known diatom species, genera, and families. To look for patterns associated with effects of the fire, we sorted these data by abundance at each site and level of taxonomic classification (species, genus, family, order, etc.). Our work demonstrates the wide variety of diatoms that live in Utah’s streams, as well as the number of diatom species for which genetic information has not been uploaded into world wide genetic databases.
