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Book

Ecology and Applications of Benthic Foraminifera

01 Jan 2006-
TL;DR: This book presents the ecological background required to explain how fossil forms are used in dating rocks and reconstructing past environmental features including changes of sea level and demonstrates how living foraminifera can be used to monitor modern-day environmental change.
Abstract: In this volume John Murray investigates the ecological processes that control the distribution, abundance, and species diversity of benthic foraminifera in environments ranging from marsh to the deepest ocean. To interpret the fossil record it is necessary to have an understanding of the ecology of modern foraminifera and the processes operating after death leading to burial and fossilisation. This book presents the ecological background required to explain how fossil forms are used in dating rocks and reconstructing past environmental features including changes of sea level. It demonstrates how living foraminifera can be used to monitor modern-day environmental change. Ecology and Applications of Benthic Foraminifera presents a comprehensive and global coverage of the subject using all the available literature. It is supported by a website hosting a large database of additional ecological information (www.cambridge.org/0521828392) and will form an important reference for academic researchers and graduate students in Earth and Environmental Sciences.

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Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Large areas of low oxygen persist seasonally or continuously beneath upwelling regions, associated with the upper parts of oxygen minimum zones (SE Pacific, W Africa, N Indian Ocean), and support a resident fauna that is adapted to survive and reproduce at oxygen concentrations.
Abstract: . Coastal hypoxia (defined here as Hypoxia alters both the structure and function of benthic communities, but effects may differ with regional hypoxia history. Human-caused hypoxia is generally linked to eutrophication, and occurs adjacent to watersheds with large populations or agricultural activities. Many occurrences are seasonal, within estuaries, fjords or enclosed seas of the North Atlantic and the NW Pacific Oceans. Benthic faunal responses, elicited at oxygen levels below 2 ml L−1, typically involve avoidance or mortality of large species and elevated abundances of enrichment opportunists, sometimes prior to population crashes. Areas of low oxygen persist seasonally or continuously beneath upwelling regions, associated with the upper parts of oxygen minimum zones (SE Pacific, W Africa, N Indian Ocean). These have a distribution largely distinct from eutrophic areas and support a resident fauna that is adapted to survive and reproduce at oxygen concentrations

606 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: The aim is to standardise methodologies used in bio-monitoring only and not to limit the use of different methods in pure scientific studies, and to propose two types of recommendations about living (stained) benthic foraminiferal assemblages.

366 citations


Cites background or methods from "Ecology and Applications of Benthic..."

  • ...Living foraminiferal population densitymay reach 100 specimens per 10 cm3 (size fraction >125 μm) in near-shore areas that are rather rich in food, but values may drop to tens of specimens and even less during winter at mid to high latitudes (e.g., Lehmann, 2000; Murray, 2006)....

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  • ...Although the 125 μm-fraction should be preferentially used to obtain census data of benthic foraminiferal assemblages in foraminiferal bio-monitoring as explained below, many ecological studies are based on assemblages >63 μm (Murray, 2006)....

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  • ...…(e.g., Alve, 1995a; Mojtahid et al., 2006; Bouchet et al., 2007; Alve et al., 2009; Jorissen et al., 2009): • Their density in marine sediments, between 100 and 10000 living individuals >63 μm per 100 cm2 surface area (Murray, 2006), is an order of magnitude higher than that of macrofauna....

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  • ...This procedure ensures that the preservative is not diluted too much by the pore water so that ethanol concentrations do not fall below 70% (Gustafsson and Nordberg, 1999; Murray, 2006)....

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  • ...In most ecological studies however, rose Bengal has been applied (Scott et al., 2001; Murray, 2006)....

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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Benthic foraminifers inhabit a wide range of aquatic environments including open marine, brackish, and freshwater environments and Gromia, another taxon also belonging to Rhizaria, accumulate and respire nitrates through denitrification.
Abstract: Benthic foraminifers inhabit a wide range of aquatic environments including open marine, brackish, and freshwater environments. Here we show that several different and diverse foraminiferal groups (miliolids, rotaliids, textulariids) and Gromia, another taxon also belonging to Rhizaria, accumulate and respire nitrates through denitrification. The widespread occurrence among distantly related organisms suggests an ancient origin of the trait. The diverse metabolic capacity of these organisms, which enables them to respire with oxygen and nitrate and to sustain respiratory activity even when electron acceptors are absent from the environment, may be one of the reasons for their successful colonization of diverse marine sediment environments. The contribution of eukaryotes to the removal of fixed nitrogen by respiration may equal the importance of bacterial denitrification in ocean sediments.

260 citations


Cites background from "Ecology and Applications of Benthic..."

  • ...arctica Greenland 11 10,624 (3,555) 0–34,902 1....

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  • ...More widespread species such as Uvigerina peregrina, Valvulineria bradyana, and Clavulina cylindrica from continental slopes, shelves, and coastal sediments (3) also store nitrate....

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  • ...0E−03) 65 (36) Cibicidoides pachyderma Bay of Biscay 1 0 0 0 Epistominella exigua OMZ-Perú 2 0 0 0 Melonis barleeanus North Sea 7 9 (3) 1–27 1....

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  • ...Because benthic foraminifers inhabit a wide range of aquatic environments and can be found in densities of up to several million individuals per square meter (3), they may play an important role in temporal nitrate sequestering, nitrate transport, and nitrogen removal through denitrification....

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Book ChapterDOI
01 Jan 2012
TL;DR: Only the GSSPs for the Bashkirian, Visean and Tournaisian (base of the Mississippian) have been formalized, although the latter now has complications as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Only the GSSPs for the Bashkirian (base of the Pennsylvanian), Visean and Tournaisian (base of the Mississippian) have been formalized, although the latter now has complications.

229 citations

Book ChapterDOI
01 Jun 2001
TL;DR: A glossary and some basic taxonomy on all of the species used in this book have been provided, as an appendix, for those readers who want to go a step further as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: A glossary and some basic taxonomy on all of the species used in this book have been provided, as an appendix, for those readers who want to go a step further. The bibliography is also in the appendix and includes all the text references as well as those only in the taxonomy section of the appendix; this should provide a good literature base for further study. A variety of applications have been shown here, such as: Climatic (including sea-level) Pollution impact, monitoring, mitigation Seismic activity “fingerprints” Sediment transport phenomena (tracers) Storm activity tracers Paleoproductivity indicators Classification and characterisation of estuaries Freshwater–marine transitions There are also remarks on several other subjects. Biostratigraphy, which is the most widely known of all microfossil applications, has been excluded as it was felt that it has been already documented in great detail elsewhere; the type of applications discussed in this book represent the future of micropaleontology and will likely be the most often used in the coming decades. It is clear that there are almost as many applications for microfossils as there are environmental problems. The authors have discussed a few examples derived from their own experience, but new types of problems arise almost daily. The readers of this book should consider these examples as just that – examples – whereas the techniques discussed in the book can be applied to any type of problem that may be encountered in aquatic environments.

213 citations

References
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Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: This final installment of the paper considers the case where the signals or the messages or both are continuously variable, in contrast with the discrete nature assumed until now.
Abstract: In this final installment of the paper we consider the case where the signals or the messages or both are continuously variable, in contrast with the discrete nature assumed until now. To a considerable extent the continuous case can be obtained through a limiting process from the discrete case by dividing the continuum of messages and signals into a large but finite number of small regions and calculating the various parameters involved on a discrete basis. As the size of the regions is decreased these parameters in general approach as limits the proper values for the continuous case. There are, however, a few new effects that appear and also a general change of emphasis in the direction of specialization of the general results to particular cases.

65,425 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: Information content may be used as a measure of the diversity of a many-species biological collection whereby the sample size is progressively increased by addition of new quadrats and the mean increment in total diversity that results from enlarging the sample still more provides an estimate of the Diversity per individual in the whole population.

4,415 citations

Journal ArticleDOI
TL;DR: It is shown that in a large collection of Lepidoptera captured in Malaya the frequency of the number of species represented by different numbers of individuals fitted somewhat closely to a hyperbola type of curve, so long as only the rarer species were considered.
Abstract: Part 1. It is shown that in a large collection of Lepidoptera captured in Malaya the frequency of the number of species represented by different numbers of individuals fitted somewhat closely to a hyperbola type of curve, so long as only the rarer species were considered. The data for the commoner species was not so strictly `randomized', but the whole series could be closely fitted by a series of the logarithmic type as described by Fisher in Part 3. Other data for random collections of insects in the field were also shown to fit fairly well to this series. Part 2. Extensive data on the capture of about 1500 Macrolepidoptera of about 240 species in a light-trap at Harpenden is analysed in relation to Fisher's mathematical theory and is shown to fit extremely closely to the calculations. The calculations are applied first to the frequency of occurrence of species represented by different numbers of individuals--and secondly to the number of species in samples of different sizes from the same population. The parameter ` alpha ', which it is suggested should be called the `index of diversity', is shown to have a regular seasonal change in the case of the Macrolepidoptera in the trap. In addition, samples from two traps which overlooked somewhat different vegetation are shown to have ` alpha ' values which are significantly different. It is shown that, provided the samples are not small, ` alpha ' is the increase in the number of species obtained by increasing the size of a sample by e (2.718). A diagram is given (Fig. 8) from which any one of the values, total number of species, total number of individuals and index of diversity (alpha), can be obtained approximately if the other two are known. The standard error of alpha is also indicated on the same diagram. Part 3. A theoretical distribution is developed which appears to be suitable for the frequencies with which different species occur in a random collection, in the common case in which many species are so rare that their chance of inclusion is small. The relationships of the new distribution with the negative binomial and the Poisson series are established. Numerical processes are exhibited for fitting the series to observations containing given numbers of species and individuals, and for estimating the parameter alpha representing the richness in species of the material sampled; secondly, for calculating the standard error of alpha, and thirdly, for testing whether the series exhibits a significant deviation from the limiting form used. Special tables are presented for facilitating these calculations.

3,121 citations