Biodiversity of planktonic foraminifers and their contribution to the carbon cycle

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The stable carbon isotope of planktonic foraminiferal shells is potentially a useful indicator to reconstruct the past carbon cycle. This study has unveiled the diversity and ecology of planktonic foraminifers and their association with photosymbionts, to understand the vital effect during calcification process. Phylogeographic analyses of planktonic foraminifers in the world oceans showed significant relationships of their genetic and phenotypic variations to two major environment factors (ocean current and water temperature). The time-series observation showed that the frequency of each planktonic foraminiferal genetic type was seasonally changed, but not attribute to any environmental factors (temperature and chlorophyll density). The frequency of genetic types of photosymbionts showed independent seasonality from those of the hosts. This may suggest that species composition of photosymbionts is reflected to ecology of the host.