Turborotalita quinqueloba (Natland, 1938)


Turborotalita quinqueloba is a high latitude species (Fig. 39) which becomes abundant in transitional and polar water masses. It has nearly the same preferences for winter and summer conditions in sea surface temperature, salinity, and density. It is a good salinity indicator with a maximum near 35 psu, which lives in water masses with little seasonal change in salinity. Due to its high latitude habitat it prefers environments with low vertical temperature gradients and stratification. In winter T. quinqueloba is limited to areas where nearly no vertical temperature gradient or stratification exists. A relative abundance of this species exceeding about 10% may even be indicative of areas of intermediate or deep water formation. Van Leeuwen (1989) considers T. quinqueloba as an upwelling indicator in the Angola Basin. In the present data, T. quinqueloba has very low relative abundances close to the counting error in low latitudes. This does not suggest affinities with low latitude upwelling systems.



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Figure 39: Turborotalita quinqueloba (Natland, 1938). Plots of relative abundance vs. selected physical parameters and latitude. For preferences in numeric form see appendix.


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