No Latitudinal Trends in Body Size of Foraminifera

Many organisms, such as penguins and polar bears, follow Bergmann's rule, which states that body size of animals tends to increase as temperature decreases, and thus as latitude increases toward to poles. A study of marine mollusk bivalves across a latitudinal gradient found no correlation between body size and latitude along the North American Pacific Coast, suggesting that the body size of marine bivalves might be controlled by other factors. This posed the question: Is there a lack of correlation between latitude and body size for all marine invertebrates or is it unique to marine bivalves? In this study, we examined four suborders of benthic foraminifera, Lagenina, Miliolina, Rotaliina, and Textulariina, a diverse phylum of amoeboid protists, to determine the relationship between body size and latitude within and across suborders at the global scale. We measured the shell (test) dimensions of foraminifera from a compilation of monograph images of type specimens. The mean test size as well as the maximum body size of those foraminifera suborders does not vary with increasing latitude. Our results show that foraminifera do not follow Bergmann's rule, consistent with the body size distribution pattern observed in marine bivalves. Different biological and environmental factors that vary between foraminifera suborders, such as life habitats, behaviors, and physiology, might have a greater influence on body size distributions.