High-resolution species biogeography of Larger Benthic Foraminifera from Raja Ampat (Indonesia) and the Indo-Pacific Ocean

印度洋-太平洋中部的珊瑚三角区是热带海洋生物多样性的热点，拥有世界上最高的保护优先事项。热带海洋生物多样性热点在时间和空间上不断移动，总是与主要的构造板块碰撞相吻合，但促进物种丰富的基本进化过程仍然是一个有争议的问题，需要进一步调查。大型底栖有孔虫（LBF）是珊瑚礁发育、多样性和进化的完美代理生物，是参与珊瑚礁建设和稳定性的杰出生态系统工程师。本提案旨在支持一项为期一年的印度-太平洋LBF高分辨率物种地理学项目，作为Raja Ampat（印度尼西亚）底栖有孔虫极其多样化组合博士研究的一部分。这项研究是第一个大规模的有孔虫研究，在这个几乎未开发的地区，因此填补了一个重要的地理知识的差距有关的过程产生的物种丰富度。它以前由波恩大学的奖学金资助，期限为2年。在这2年中，我们检查了a）拉贾安帕组合的有孔虫物种丰富度，B）通过扫描电子显微镜建立了礁动物群组合的完整文件，和c）评估底栖有孔虫作为生态系统工程师的作用。到目前为止，我们的研究结果显示出小型和大型底栖生物类群的物种丰富度非常高，并提出了以下新目标，这些目标将在本博士研究项目的最后一年进行：（1）调查印度洋和太平洋LBF物种丰富度的大规模模式，并为LBF制定物种水平的多样性梯度，分辨率的图片，其中包括热带海洋多样性的热点第一次，并比较我们的结果种水平的珊瑚礁的地理格局。(2)揭示了印度洋-太平洋中部底栖有孔虫动物群与印度洋和太平洋底栖有孔虫动物群之间的动物群相似性。因此，我们希望找到支持的过程中产生的物种丰富度在印度太平洋中部的假设之一。

The Coral Triangle in the central Indo-Pacific is the hotspot for tropical marine biodiversity and has the worlds highest conservation priorities. Tropical marine biodiversity hotspots are moving through time and space and always coincide with major tectonic plate collisions, but the underlying evolutionary processes that promote species richness are still a matter of debate and in need of further investigations. Reef dwelling larger benthic foraminifera (LBF) are perfect proxy organisms for reefal development, diversity and evolution and are prominent ecosystem engineers involved in reef building and stability.This proposal is for the support of a 1 year project on high-resolution species biogeography of LBF from the Indo-Pacific as part of a PhD study on the extremely high diverse assemblages of benthic foraminifera from Raja Ampat (Indonesia). The study is the first large-scale foraminiferal study in this virtually unexplored region and therefore fills an important biogeographic gap of knowledge concerning processes generating species richness. It has been previously funded by a scholarship of the University of Bonn, that is limited for 2 years. During these 2 years we examined a) the foraminiferal species richness of assemblages from Raja Ampat, b) established a full documentation of the reefal faunal assemblages by scanning electron microscopy, and c) assessed the role of benthic foraminifera as ecosystem engineers. So far our results exhibit an extraordinary high species richness of both smaller and larger benthic taxa and give rise to the following new objectives, which will be worked on in the final year of this PhD research project: (1) Investigation of large-scale patterns of LBF species richness for the Indian and the Pacific Ocean and elaboration of a diversity gradient on species level for LBF to offer an updated high-resolution picture which includes the hotspot of tropical marine diversity for the first time, and comparison of our results to species-level biogeography patterns of scleractinian corals. (2) Revealing faunal similarities between the central Indo-Pacific benthic foraminiferal fauna and those of the Indian and Pacific Ocean. Thereby we expect to find support for one of the hypotheses concerning the processes generating species richness in the central Indo-Pacific.