ForCenS, a curated database of planktonic foraminifera census counts in marine surface sediment samples

Abstract

Census counts of marine microfossils in surface sediments represent an invaluable resource for paleoceanography and for the investigation of macroecological processes. A prerequisite for such applications is the provision of data syntheses for individual microfossil groups. Specific to such syntheses is the necessity of taxonomical harmonisation across the constituent datasets, coupled with dereplication of previous compilations. Both of these aspects require expert knowledge, but with increasing number of records involved in such syntheses, the application of expert knowledge via manual curation is not feasible. Here we present a synthesis of planktonic foraminifera census counts in surface sediment samples, which is taxonomically harmonised, dereplicated and treated for numerical and other inconsistencies. The data treatment is implemented as an objective and largely automated pipeline, allowing us to reduce the initial 6,984 records to 4,205 counts from unique sites and informative technical or true replicates. We provide the final product and document the procedure, which can be easily adopted for other microfossil data syntheses.

On the mismatch in the strength of competition among fossil and modern species of planktonic Foraminifera

“…We used the Aze et al () Cenozoic phylogeny of macroperforate species as a basis to obtain phylogenetic relationships among extant PF. Following the taxonomic standardization of Siccha and Kucera (), we updated the taxon names in the Aze et al () phylogeny, removed synonyms and added newly recognized species (Supporting Information Figure S1). The final phylogeny includes 33 species (Supporting Information Figure S1); the 14 species not present in the phylogeny (e.g., microperforates) were excluded from the phylogenetic analysis.…”

“…We used the Aze et al (2011) lineage phylogeny of macroperforate Cenozoic planktonic Foraminifera for this figure F I G U R E 2 (a) Map of modern planktonic Foraminifera (PF) abundance data. Green dots, spatial data: 3,053 ocean-floor coretop samples, each with data on relative abundance of all the species present in the sample (usually larger than 150 μm; Siccha & Kucera, 2017). Orange triangles, temporal data: 35 sediment traps, each with data on abundance (shell flux) time series of PF species.…”

The last interglacial (MIS 5e) cycle at Little Bahama Bank: A history of climate and sea-level changes

“…For instance, in the modern tropical Caribbean, reproduction of G. truncatulinoides is inhibited by strong thermocline in well-stratified waters (Schmuker and Schiebel, 2000). This is in contrast to the subtropical N. Atlantic where winter sea surface cooling (T<23°C) and deep mixing occur alongside with increase of G. truncatulinoides 230 up to 15% (Levitus et al, 2013;Siccha and Kučera, 2017). It could, therefore, be proposed that the overall abundance of G. truncatulinoides in our subtropical settings was at least partly controlled by oceanic conditions occurring nearer to the sea surface (Mulitza et al, 1997;Jonkers and Kučera, 2016).…”

“…Also shown in (B-E) are modern relative foraminiferal abundances (average value ±1s) around Bahama Bank, computed using 7 nearest samples from Siccha and Kučera (2017) (Gibson and Peterson, 2014), (E-F) d 13 C values measured in 625 benthic foraminifera and relative abundances of G. ruber (total) and G. sacculifer from ODP Site 1063 . …”

“…G. sacculifer -it makes up less than 5% of the planktic foraminiferal assemblage around the LBB today (Siccha and Kučera, 2017) -is abundant in the Caribbean Sea and tropical Atlantic and commonly used as a tracer of tropical waters and geographical shifts of the ITCZ (Poore et al, 2003;Vautravers et al, 2007). Also, G. ruber (pink) shows rather coherent abundance maxima in the tropics (between 20°N and 20°S), while no such affinity is observed for G. ruber (white) and G. conglobatus (Siccha and Kučera, 2017;Schiebel and Hemleben, 2017). Therefore, fluctuations in relative 260 abundances of G. sacculifer and G. ruber (pink) are referred here as to represent a warm tropical end-member (Fig.…”