Abstract
Marine microfossils record the environmental, ecological, and evolutionary dynamics of past oceans in temporally expanded sedimentary archives. Rapid imaging approaches provide a means of exploiting the primary advantage of this archive, the vast number of fossils, for evolution and ecology. Here we provide the first large scale image and 2D and 3D shape dataset of modern planktonic foraminifera, a major microfossil group, from 34 Atlantic Ocean sediment samples. Information on more than 124,000 objects is provided, including general object classification for 4/5ths of the dataset (~ 99,000 objects). Of the ~ 99,000 classifications provided, more than 61,000 are complete or damaged planktonic foraminifera. Objects also include benthic foraminifera, ostracods, pteropods, spicules, and planktonic foraminifera test fragments, among others. This dataset is the first major microfossil output of a new high-throughput imaging method (AutoMorph) developed to extract 2D and 3D data from photographic images of fossils. Our sample preparation and imaging techniques are described in detail. The data provided here comprises the most extensive publically available archive of planktonic foraminiferal morphology and morphological variation to date.
Highlights
Background & SummaryPaleontology and evolutionary biology are in the midst of a revolution driven by the proliferation of three-dimensional imaging technologies[1,2]
We have developed a high-throughput approach for extracting 2D and 3D shape information from photographic images called AutoMorph[6,7] and have used this technique to generate extensive image and shape data for modern planktonic foraminifera
Planktonic foraminifera are mixotrophic protists with calcium carbonate tests found primarily in the sunlit layers of the global ocean[8,9]. Due to their abundant fossil record and importance in paleoceanographic research, planktonic foraminifera and other microfossil groups have been the focus of manyautomated approaches for extracting information on factors like size, 2D shape, calcite thickness, and species[10,11,12,13]. Despite this long history of extensive imaging, there are few shared datasets consisting of the primary data of the many of millions of microfossil measurements and images made to date, likely due to difficulty of sharing large files in the past[14]
Summary
Paleontology and evolutionary biology are in the midst of a revolution driven by the proliferation of three-dimensional imaging technologies[1,2]. Population-level studies of 3D-morphological evolution have remained relatively rare, due to the time and data intensive nature of these approaches[2] To address this gap, we have developed a high-throughput approach for extracting 2D and 3D shape information from photographic images called AutoMorph[6,7] and have used this technique to generate extensive image and shape data for modern planktonic foraminifera. Planktonic foraminifera are mixotrophic protists with calcium carbonate tests found primarily in the sunlit layers of the global ocean[8,9] Due to their abundant fossil record and importance in paleoceanographic research, planktonic foraminifera and other microfossil groups (i.e., coccolithophores, radiolarians, and diatoms) have been the focus of many (semi-)automated approaches for extracting information on factors like size, 2D shape, calcite thickness, and species[10,11,12,13]. The publically available dataset presented here provides the most extensive images, 2D and 3D shape documentation of the range of morphological variation observed in recent planktonic foraminifera to date, and provides a baseline for considering variation in morphology across both time and space
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