Nobody had ever seen the model centric diatom, Thalassiosira pseudonana, undergo sexual reproduction. Grad student, Eric Moore, documented the sexual stages and showed upregulation of genes involved in meiosis and flagellar synthesis. Moreover, he figured out what triggers these diatoms and other centric diatoms to shift into the sexual cycle resulting in cell enlargement. Read about it here on BioRxiv.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/144667
