Triton, a new species-level database of Cenozoic planktonic foraminiferal occurrences

Planktonic foraminifera are a major constituent of ocean floor sediments, and thus have one of the most complete fossil records of any organism. Expeditions to sample these sediments have produced large amounts of spatiotemporal occurrence records throughout the Cenozoic, but no single source exists to house these data. We have therefore created a comprehensive dataset that integrates numerous sources for spatiotemporal records of planktonic foraminifera. This new dataset, Triton, contains >500,000 records and is four times larger than the previous largest database, Neptune. To ensure comparability among data sources, we have cleaned all records using a unified set of taxonomic concepts and have converted age data to the GTS 2020 timescale. Where ages were not absolute (e.g. based on biostratigraphic or magnetostratigraphic zones), we have used generalised additive models to produce continuous estimates. This dataset is an excellent resource for macroecological and macroevolutionary studies, particularly for investigating how species responded to past climatic changes.Sample Characteristic - Environmen>Machine-accessible metadata file describing the reported data: https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.14655564

Automated summary

Planktonic foraminifera are a significant component of ocean floor sediments, with one of the most complete fossil records. An extensive dataset named Triton has been created, containing over 500,000 records, cleaned and standardized for research purposes. This dataset provides valuable resources for macroecological and macroevolutionary studies, especially in investigating species responses to past climatic changes.