Samples and Methods:
Six marine sediment samples were used on total in my master thesis, covering different world oceans, to obtain as many as possible recent planktonic foraminiferal species for analysing their morphological traits. Sample origin of the samples 1: Caribbean, 2: North Atlantic, 3: Arabian-Sea, 4: South-China-Sea, 5: Norwegian-Sea and 6: North Pacific (for available metadata see the data table). Sample 1, 2 and 5 were core-top samples and were obtained from the collection of the Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, they were obtained already processed as a resdiue >63 µm. Sample 6 another core-top sample was just used to obtain three specimen of Globoquadrina conglomerata as this species was missing in the other samples. Sample 3 and 4 (sediment-trap samples) were provided by Dr. Hartmut Schulz (University of Tübingen) and were processed with standard micropaleontological techniques during my master thesis. Sample 1, 2 and 6 are old samples from the micropalaeontological collection of the University of Tübingen and do unfortunately not have geographic location data as longitude and latitude. The aim of my master thesis was to obtain as many extant planktonic foraminiferal species as possible and extract three random specimens per species to be imaged and to investigate their morphological features. All specimens were embedded in "Utermöl"- containers with Ethanol and were imaged with a binocular microscope from below, following the method described by Brummer and Kroon (1988). The same three specimens were imaged using a Leo-1450VP scanning electron microscope (SEM), all images are given in the electronic appendix of the master thesis Baranowski (2013). All test-size measurements are preformed if possible on the SEM pictures and where impossible on the binocular microscope pictures. To be consistent the test-size diameter was measured from the middle of the last chamber through the proloculus to the opposite side of the test to obtain a consitent morphological size measurment throughout the different planktonic foraminiferal species.
Acknowledgement:
This dataset was published to complement the size-data used in: Rillo et al. (in submission) - I would like to thank Dr. Marina Rillo that my data could be of use for her publication.
Enormously I would like to thank the two supervisors of my Master thesis: Prof. Michal Kucera (MARUM - University of Bremen) and Prof. Walter Joyce (Universite de Fribourg). Further tremendous thanks belong to Dr. Harmut Schulz (University of Tübingen) who contributed to this dataset by supporting the extensive SEM analysis and providing samples. Special thanks I would like to attribute to Prof. Geert-Jan Brummer (NIOZ, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research) who helpt hugly with my understanding of the extant minute planktonic foraminiferal species. Margret Bayer, Peter Fittkau and Willfried Rönnfeld I would like to thank for technical support during the master thesis at the University of Tübingen. Dipl.-Geol. Sofie Jehle and Dipl.-Geol. Dominic Köhler I would like to thank for reading my master thesis and providing advice on academic writing, grammer and orthography. Additionally I would like to thank my PhD supervisor Dr. Tom Dunkley-Jones (University of Birmingham), Dr. Isabel Fenton (University of Oxford) and Prof. Andy Purvis (NHM, London) who brought my master thesis to Marina Rillos (University of Oldenburg) attention.
