Data from: Climatic forcing of Quaternary deep-sea benthic communities in the North Pacific Ocean

There is a growing evidence that changes in deep-sea benthic ecosystems
are modulated by climate changes, but most evidence to date comes from the
North Atlantic Ocean. Here we analyze new ostracod and published
foraminiferal records for the last 250,000 years on Shatsky Rise in the
North Pacific Ocean. Using linear models, we evaluate statistically the
ability of environmental drivers (temperature, productivity, and
seasonality of productivity) to predict changes in faunal diversity,
abundance and composition. These microfossil data show
glacial-interglacial shifts in overall abundances and species diversities
that are low during glacial intervals and high during interglacials. These
patterns replicate those previously documented in the North Atlantic
Ocean, suggesting that the climatic forcing of the deep-sea ecosystem is
widespread, and possibly global in nature. However, these results also
reveal differences with prior studies that probably reflect the isolated
nature of Shatsky Rise as a remote oceanic plateau. Ostracod assemblages
on Shatsky Rise are highly endemic but of low diversity, consistent with
the limited dispersal potential of these animals. Benthic foraminifera, by
contrast, have much greater dispersal ability and their assemblages at
Shatsky Rise show diversities typical for deep-sea faunas in other
regions. Statistical analyses also reveal ostracod–foraminferal
differences in relationships between environmental drivers and biotic
change. Rarefied diversity is best explained as a hump-shaped function of
surface productivity in ostracods, but as having a weak and positive
relationship with temperature in foraminifera. Abundance shows a positive
relationship with both productivity and seasonality of productivity in
foraminifera, and a hump-shaped relationship in ostracods. Finally,
species composition in ostracods is influenced by both temperature and
productivity, but only a temperature effect is evident in foraminifera.
Though complex in detail, the global-scale link between deep-sea
ecosystems and Quaternary climate changes underscores the interaction
between the physical and biological components of paleoceanographical
research to better understand the history of the biosphere.