Supplementary Material: Intraspecific size variation in planktonic foraminifera cannot be consistently predicted by the environment ...
The size structure of plankton communities is an important determinant of their functions in marine ecosystems. However, few studies have quantified how organism size varies within species across biogeographical scales. Here, we investigate how planktonic foraminifera, a ubiquitous zooplankton group...
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| Format: | Dataset |
| Language: | English |
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Natural History Museum
2019
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| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.5519/0056541 http://data.nhm.ac.uk/dataset/e7932ea6-58ec-4d7d-8de0-c32e7c7b88e6 |
| Summary: | The size structure of plankton communities is an important determinant of their functions in marine ecosystems. However, few studies have quantified how organism size varies within species across biogeographical scales. Here, we investigate how planktonic foraminifera, a ubiquitous zooplankton group, vary in size across the tropical and subtropical oceans of the world. Using a recently digitized museum collection, we measured shell area of 3,799 individuals of nine extant species in 53 seafloor sediments. We first analyzed potential size biases in the collection. Then, for each site, we obtained corresponding local values of mean annual sea‐surface temperature (SST), net primary productivity (NPP), and relative abundance of each species. Given former studies, we expected species to reach largest shell sizes under optimal environmental conditions. In contrast, we observe that species differ in how much their size variation is explained by SST, NPP, and/or relative abundance. While some species have ... |
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