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Line Island Foraminifera – the ultimate stepping stone for the dispersal of species across the Pacific Ocean

Subject Area Palaeontology
Term from 2022 to 2023
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 523070829
 
Final Report Year 2024

Final Report Abstract

This project examined the spatial distribution and species richness studies of modern benthic foraminifera from the Line Islands, an isolated island chain located in the Central Pacific Ocean. The Line Islands constitute a chain of 11 atolls in the central Pacific Ocean. Situated in the Central Pacific Ocean, they rank among the most isolated islands in the world and hold a biogeographic key position. Due to their isolated location in the central tropical Pacific and comparatively difficult accessibility, the Line Islands include some of the least visited coral reefs on earth. To date, information on marine microbiota biodiversity in these atolls is almost nonexistent. To explore the role of the Line Islands in facilitating the dispersal and colonization of marine species across the vast expanse of the Pacific Ocean, we documented the composition, species richness, and structure of modern foraminiferal assemblages, and present the first fully illustrated catalog of shallow benthic foraminifera from the northern Line Islands. During the funding period we have identified a total of more than 25-thousand individuals and documented their distribution across six island. This resulted in a total of 140 species, and quadrupled the number of all taxa reported so far. Our study is based on 69 sediment samples from a total of 6 coral reef islands and atolls spanning ~6.8° latitude and ~5.2° longitude in the central Pacific Ocean (: Kingman Reef, Palmyra Atoll, Teraina Island (Washington), Tabuearan Atoll (Fanning), Kiritimati Atoll (Christmas), and Jarvis Island. Analysis of these data revealed statistically significant patterns of anthropogenic influence. Comparative studies of biogeographic distributions show that many tropical species are not dispersing further east and are not crossing the East Pacific Barrier.

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