Deep-sea biodiversity in space and time: What high time resolution microfossil records tell

Abstract

Deep-sea biodiversity changes both in space and time. Regarding spatial patterns, for example, there are more species in the tropics and less species in the Arctic Ocean, constituting the latitudinal diversity gradient, one of the most pervasive ecological patterns on Earth. We know much less regarding the biodiversity changes with time, because deep-sea long-term monitoring is difficult and do not persist beyond a few decades. Fossils are basically the only direct records of deep past biodiversity. Ostracods are small, bivalved crustaceans with the finest-scale fossil resolution of any metazoan, and thus an ideal model system to study deep-sea biodiversity both in space and time, allowing to obtain high time resolution fossil time series data, for example, of multidecadal and centennial time scales. This presentation will show a synthesis of the patterns and possible causes of deepsea biodiversity variation for the last two million years, using benthic deep-sea ostracod as a model system. High time resolution microfossil records show that deep-sea biodiversity has clearly responded to global climate changes.