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Interpreting seawater temperature range using oxygen isotopes and zooid size variation in Pentapora foliacea (Bryozoa)

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Abstract

This is the first investigation of how two independent proxies for seawater temperature inference (zooid size variation and oxygen isotope ratios of skeletal carbonate) relate to the actual measured ranges of temperature experienced by cheilostome bryozoan colonies. Nine specimens of the bimineralic marine cheilostome bryozoan Pentapora foliacea (Ellis and Solander, 1786) were analysed, collected from ~18-m depth at two localities in Wales, UK—four from Skomer Island (51°42′510″N, 5°13′42.60″W) and five from Porth Ysgaden, Lleyn Peninsula (52°54′6.75″N, 4°38′47.34″W). The annual range of temperature implied by zooid size variability provides a good approximation of the actual range of temperature recorded by a datalogger. However, annual ranges of temperature reconstructed from skeletal oxygen isotope ratios were narrower, typically not showing the lowest temperatures experienced by the colonies. This can be explained by progressive thickening of zooid skeletal walls during the life of the colony that homogenises the temperature signal by time-averaging over the lifetime of the colonies. Our study provides evidence that a combined morphological isotope approach has great potential in the reconstruction of annual ranges in seawater temperatures from historical and fossil bryozoans, particularly for species that lack ontogenetic skeletal wall thickening and bimineralic skeletal composition. As cheilostome bryozoans have been common in benthic communities since the Late Cretaceous, they represent a valuable and underutilised resource for the interpretation of environmental regimes.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Chiara Lombardi, Mary Spencer Jones, Scott Tompsett, Skomer Marine Nature Reserve for their help providing specimens and temperature data, and Tony Wighton, Alex Ball, Lauren Howard and Gordon Cressey for assistance with SEM, thin section production and XRD. We also thank two anonymous referees for their helpful comments that improved the manuscript. This work was financed by a NERC PhD studentship awarded to T. Knowles (NER/S/A/2005/14382) and NERC award and IP/872/1105.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London, SW7 5BD, UK

    T. Knowles, P. D. Taylor & B. Okamura

  2. NERC Isotope Geosciences Laboratory, British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, UK

    T. Knowles, M. J. Leng & H. J. Sloane

  3. Department of Geology, University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK

    M. Williams

  4. British Geological Survey, Keyworth, Nottingham, NG12 5GG, UK

    M. Williams

Authors
  1. T. Knowles
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  2. M. J. Leng
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  3. M. Williams
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  4. P. D. Taylor
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  5. H. J. Sloane
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  6. B. Okamura
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Correspondence to T. Knowles.

Additional information

Communicated by J. P. Grassle.

Electronic supplementary material

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227_2010_1397_MOESM1_ESM.doc

S1 Table of data used to calculate isotope based annual temperature range in Table 2. In all specimens, the lowest numbered sample is from the oldest part of the specimen (i.e. Skomer 1.1 is the oldest sample from specimen Skomer 1) (DOC 454 kb)

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Knowles, T., Leng, M.J., Williams, M. et al. Interpreting seawater temperature range using oxygen isotopes and zooid size variation in Pentapora foliacea (Bryozoa). Mar Biol 157, 1171–1180 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-010-1397-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00227-010-1397-5

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