Highly replicated sampling reveals no diurnal vertical migration but stable species-specific vertical habitats in planktonic foraminifera

Development, Productivity, and Seasonality of Living Planktonic Foraminiferal Faunas and Limacina helicina in an Area of Intense Methane Seepage in the Barents Sea

“…The Arctic and northern polar LPF population shows a low diversity, and is dominated by Neogloboquadrina pachyderma and Turborotalita quinqueloba (e.g., Carstens et al, ; Eynaud, ; Jensen, ; Pados & Spielhagen, ; Volkmann, ), similar to our samples from the Barents Sea. In addition, our samples from April and June in the crater area highlight the highly heterogeneous nature of the LPF spatial distribution (Meilland et al, ) along the 9 km transect (Figure ). It has been shown that the zooplankton community in the Barents Sea display strong seasonal variability in terms of their concentration and community composition (Arashkevich et al, ).…”

Responses to Referee 2 comments

“…R: The ecology of T. iota is little known, so it is expected that the depth habitat can vary depending to oceanic realm and the season. For example, G. crassaformis, was observed with very shallow distribution in the Eastern Azores current (Rebotim et al, 2017) whereas it distributed below 100 m in other parts C4 of the tropical Atlantic (this study, Jentzen et al, 2018, Meilland et al, 2019. Thus, it is more probable that the environmental conditions of the South Atlantic Subtropical Gyre during the late summer controlled the distribution of T. iota instead of taxonomic misidentification.…”

“…The specimen 9 had all morphologic requisites to be classified as T. iota with four chambers at the last whorl, microperforate surface, and plenty of spiked pustules in the umbilical side. We are confident about the quality of our taxonomy.. R2C: and the rather unusual distribution pattern of T. iota (page 8, lines 47-49, "...the shallow habitat of T. iota is at odds with its concentration maximum around 300 m in the NE Atlantic reported by Rebotim et al (2017). Clearly, the ecology of this species requires further investigation") may result from misidentification.…”

“…We agree with the close-up to North Atlantic Subtropical Gyre to compare our results, which will be incorporated in the main text on Discussion section. R2C: Page 2, line 2: Temperature is possibly an indicator, not "control"; see, e.g., Jentzen et al 2018 "in many other studies/regions": please be specific; which studies/regions? Refer to the papers of Bé, Bijma, Jentzen, Salmon, Schmuker, Schiebel, etc R: The sentence will be rephrased to better clarification.…”

“…Refer to the papers of Bé, Bijma, Jentzen, Salmon, Schmuker, Schiebel, etc R: The sentence will be rephrased to better clarification. R2C: Page 8, line 39: why only "thermally constrained"; please discussion with reference to the existing literature (e.g., Jentzen et al 2018, etc) R: The sentence will be rephrased to better clarification R2C: Page 9, line 6: what is meant by majority? Please be specific, and discuss the different species.…”