Globorotalia scitula Brady, 1882


This species (Fig. 23) rarely exceeds 2% relative abundance in the assemblages and occurs over a wide range of physical conditions with broad preferences for subtropical environments. The most pronounced relationships exist with sea surface salinity, areas with low seasonality in salinity, low vertical gradients in temparture and density, and with the temperature at 200 m. The data does not suggest seasonal preferences, except for winter stratification, however, the peak is not pronounced and would be expected for a subtropical species. The species appears in surface waters near Bermuda in spring and subsequently descends to depth (Hemleben et al., 1989). A deep dwelling habitat (Bé, 1969) may be suggested by the close relation with temperatures at 200 m depth.



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Figure 23: Globorotalia scitula Brady, 1882. Plots of relative abundance vs. selected physical parameters and latitude. For preferences in numeric form see appendix.


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