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Modern planktonic foraminifera from the eastern Indian Ocean

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Abstract

A brief morphometric study of the recent planktonic foraminifera in the eastern Indian Ocean was provided with the taxonomic key to species, synonyms, SEM microphotographs of shells and chamber arrays. By recent classification, currently 20 species representing 13 genera and 6 families (Canderinidae, Heterohelicoidae, Hedbergellidae, Higerigerinoidae, Globigerinoidae, and Globorotaloidae) identified from the planktonic material of the eastern Indian Ocean up to a depth of 200 m. Their distribution in water (0–200 m) also reports on the new range of expansion in the eastern Indian Ocean, with Dentigloborotalia anfracta, Hastigerina pelagica, Streptochilus globigerus, Globigerinella calida, Globigerinella adamsi, Orcadia reidelii, Tenuitella parkerae, Tenuitella compressa, reported for the first time in this study area. In general, only around 50 planktonic species are valid worldwide, more specifically the species, e.g., H. pelagica, G. calida, G. adamsi, S. globigerus, O. riedeli, T. parkerae, T. compressa, which occur in the eastern Indian Ocean to fill the the paucity of the recent regional taxonomic literature and the problematic identification from the eastern Indian Ocean. This work aims to bridge this gap and help scientists, managers, educators and students to identify plankton foraminifers by using species notes and images.

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Acknowledgements

The authors appreciate the support of the captain and crew of R/V Shiyan 1 and other participants, Ding Changling, Zhai Weidong, Wu Libin, Su Hongfei, Song Yongjun for trowlling and sampling in the eastern Indian Ocean, which were supported by the NSFC Open Cruise for the eastern Indian Ocean during March–May 2014. Specially thanks to Ralf Scheibel (Climate Geochemistry, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Germany) and Michael Hesemann (Foraminifera.eu.Project, Germany) for conformation of species identification and Amany A. Ismael (Alexandria University, Egypt) for the comments on the manuscript.

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  1. Tianjin Key Laboratory of Marine Resources and Chemistry, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, 300457, China

    Sonia Munir & Jun Sun

  2. Research Centre for Indian Ocean Ecosystem, Tianjin University of Science and Technology, Tianjin, 300457, China

    Sonia Munir & Jun Sun

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  1. Sonia Munir
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Foundation item: The National Natural Science Foundation of China under contract Nos 41876134, 41676112, 41276124 and 41406155; the University Innovation Team Training Program for Tianjin under contract No. TD12-5003; the Changjiang Scholar Program of Chinese Ministry of Education of China to Jun Sun.

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Munir, S., Sun, J. Modern planktonic foraminifera from the eastern Indian Ocean. Acta Oceanol. Sin. 37, 46–63 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13131-018-1300-7

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