While water from Lake Matano does flow via rivers to Lake Mahalona and Lake Towuti, such flow does not appear to spread diatoms from Lake Matano to these lakes, as the proportion of taxa each of these two lakes that are also in Lake Matano (roughly half) is the same as it is for Lake Masapi, another lake on Sulawesi disconnected from Lake Matano.
While water from Lake Matano flows through rivers to Lake Mahalona and Lake Towuti, it does not seem to spread diatoms from Lake Matano to these lakes. The proportion of taxa in each of these two lakes that are also found in Lake Matano (approximately half) is the same as for Lake Masapi, another lake on Sulawesi isolated from Lake Matano.