Distribution of recent benthic foraminifera off the North American Atlantic coast

Related Titles

Series: Smithsonian contributions to the marine sciences, no. 6

By

Culver, Stephen J.

Buzas, Martin A.

Type

Book

Material

Published material

Publication info

Washington, D.C, Smithsonian Institute Press, 1980

Notes

Includes index.

A computer file of all available distributional data on the recent benthic foraminifera off the North American Atlantic Coast was constructed from 142 papers published over the last 130 years. Manipulation of this file produced 5 catalogs and 150 maps.Catalog 1 lists alphabetically species names with publication and locality information as recorded in the literature (i.e. unsynonomized). Catalog 2 lists alphabetically synonomized species names with publication and locality information. Catalogs 3 and 4 list alphabetically all unsynonomized and synonomized species names, respectively. Catalog 5 lists synonomized species names by increasing latitude and longitude.During the last 130 years, 1303 names have been used to record benthic foraminifera off the North American Atlantic Coast. Through synonomization this number was reduced to 876 of which 149 occur at 20 or more of the 542 sample sites. Computer-generated maps were drawn for these 149 most commonly recorded species.Species were grouped by depth and geographic distribution through examination of the maps. Seven species are coastal in their distribution, 71 occur mainly at depths of less than 200 m, 41 at depths of greater than 200 m, and 30 are ubiquitous. Thirteen species alter their depth distribution with latitude.Geographically, the species group into 6 categories. Thirty-one species occur from Florida to Cape Hatteras, 26 from Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod, 4 from Cape Cod to Newfoundland, 22 from Florida to Cape Cod, 40 from Cape Hatteras to Newfoundland, and 26 are ubiquitous. Because of the overlapping distribution of the species, no simple boundaries can be drawn for faunal provinces. We recognize two major overlapping faunal provinces: a northern province from Newfoundland to Cape Hatteras and a southern province from Florida to Cape Cod.

Subjects

Atlantic Coast (North America) , Foraminifera , Geographical distribution , Protozoa

Language

English

Identifiers

LCCN: https://lccn.loc.gov/79607122
OCLC: 5833781