T223 Cushman Foundation Symposium: Addressing Coastal Concerns with Micropaleontological Applications to Environmental Proxies, Reconstructions, and Deep-Time Analogs

Tuesday, 24 September 2019
1:30 PM - 5:30 PM
Room 228AB, North Building

ON REPLICATES FOR COMPARING SPECIES DENSITIES IN SPACE AND TIME

Paper number: T223-5
Program: Technical Sessions
Time: 2:25 PM – 2:40 PM

Authors

Abstract

Because benthic foraminifera exhibit spatial heterogeneity, a number of replicates or multiple biological samples are necessary to estimate precisely population densities. In this study, we examine the efficacy of taking 4 or fewer replicates to differentiate among mean densities in space and time. For space, 4 stations along a traverse with 4 replicates per station were compared with ANOVA within Mission Bay, Texas using the 4 most abundant species. Four replicates per station resulted in a significant difference in mean densities among stations for 3 of 4 taxa, 3 replicates distinguished 2 of 4, and neither 2 or 1 detected differences. For time, a single station was sampled in the Indian River Lagoon, Florida seasonally for 4 years. Either 4 or 3 replicates were found to separate mean densities among the 4 years for 3 of 4 taxa, whereas 2 or 1 replicate could not detect any difference in mean densities among the 4 years. Based on these and previous results we recommend at least 4 replicates per station for environmental monitoring. However, for larger ecological entities such as biofacies, 1 sample at each station along a single traverse containing 4 stations in each bay could delineate Mission, Copano and Mesquite Bays in Texas.

Geological Society of America Abstracts with Programs. Vol. 51, No. 5

doi: 10.1130/abs/2019AM-334199

© Copyright 2019 The Geological Society of America (GSA), all rights reserved. Permission is hereby granted to the author(s) of this abstract to reproduce and distribute it freely, for noncommercial purposes. Permission is hereby granted to any individual scientist to download a single copy of this electronic file and reproduce up to 20 paper copies for noncommercial purposes advancing science and education, including classroom use, providing all reproductions include the complete content shown here, including the author information. All other forms of reproduction and/or transmittal are prohibited without written permission from GSA Copyright Permissions.