At the Natural History Museum in Basel (Switzerland; NMB) the shells of planktonic foraminifera (marine, calcareous shell producing protists) and coccolithophorids (marine, unicellular algae) are investigated to document evolution. In particular, studies concentrate on the shell variability of the extant tropical foraminifers Globorotalia menardii and Globorotalia tumida and their ancestors, which serve as model organisms, and which can be traced back in the stratigraphic column until Miocene times (23.8 million years ago to 5.3 million years ago). The goal of these studies is to collect data for a detailed quantitative morphometric differentiation of such forms from several geological time-slices around the globe. Applying the concept of "evolutionary prospection", which includes mapping the morphological shell variability through time and geography it is attempted to derive and document basic evolutionary models for the marine plankton. Only through a profound knowledge about the evolutionary history of these organisms it is possible to improve current species concepts. The study material comes from international research programs such as the Deep-Sea Drilling Project (DSDP), the Ocean Drilling Program (ODP), or other oceanographic research studies. A novelty in the present investigation is the application of AMOR (from Automated Measurement system for the mORphology of microfossils), a robot that helps imaging the thousands of foraminiferal specimens, and that was built in close collaboration with students and members of the Institute for Automation at the Applied University of Northwestern Switzerland (FHNW).

Provider: SEDIS Publication Catalogue

Data set link: http://sedis.iodp.org/pub-catalogue/index.php?id=2012-037505 (c.f. for more detailed metadata)

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