Triton, a new species-level database of Cenozoic planktonic foraminiferal occurrences

Isabel S Fenton,Johan Renaudie,Tracy Aze,David Lazarus,Adam Woodhouse,Erin E Saupe,Alexander M Dunhill,Jeremy R Young

doi:10.1038/s41597-021-00942-7

Isabel S Fenton, Johan Renaudie + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41597-021-00942-7

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Abstract

Planktonic foraminifera are a major constituent of ocean floor sediments, and thus have one of the most complete fossil records of any organism. Expeditions to sample these sediments have produced large amounts of spatiotemporal occurrence records throughout the Cenozoic, but no single source exists to house these data. We have therefore created a comprehensive dataset that integrates numerous sources for spatiotemporal records of planktonic foraminifera. This new dataset, Triton, contains >500,000 records and is four times larger than the previous largest database, Neptune. To ensure comparability among data sources, we have cleaned all records using a unified set of taxonomic concepts and have converted age data to the GTS 2020 timescale. Where ages were not absolute (e.g. based on biostratigraphic or magnetostratigraphic zones), we have used generalised additive models to produce continuous estimates. This dataset is an excellent resource for macroecological and macroevolutionary studies, particularly for investigating how species responded to past climatic changes.

Highlights

Background & SummaryPlanktonic foraminifera are unicellular zooplankton found throughout the world’s oceans
They have calcareous shells or ‘tests’ with morphological variation that allows for specimens to be identified to species level
The morphological species concepts used to identify foraminifera species based on test characteristics agree approximately with genetic species concepts[1,2,3], with the level of cryptic speciation seemingly no more frequent than in other groups e.g. Agapow, et al.[4]

Summary

Introduction

Planktonic foraminifera are unicellular zooplankton found throughout the world’s oceans. They have calcareous shells or ‘tests’ with morphological variation that allows for specimens to be identified to species level. Planktonic foraminifera have one of the most complete species-level fossil records of any group[6]. The fossil record of planktonic foraminifera has been used to study fundamental evolutionary and ecological questions, such as the relative role of abiotic versus biotic drivers in clade diversification[7], the temporal persistence of large-scale ecological patterns such as the latitudinal biodiversity gradient[8], the importance of fossils for understanding diversity dynamics[9], and the potential of ancient extinction events to inform conservation today[10].

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