Ostracoda (Arthropoda, Crustacea) in a Miocene oxygen minimum zone, Trinidad, West Indies: A test of the Platycopid Signal Hypothesis

• The Brasso Formation was deposited in oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) induced by seasonal upwelling.
• Four species, none of them platycopids, distinguish the OMZ.
• Argilloecia posterotruncata lived below the OMZ.
• Xestoleberis sp. lived both within and below the OMZ.
• These data do not support the Platycopid Signal Hypothesis.

Studies of Recent ostracodes around the area of South America shed little light on the paleoenvironmental interpretation of Miocene assemblages. Consequently, interpretations of the Miocene ostracode assemblages must be supplemented using evidence from better documented taxa. Benthic foraminifera in samples from the Lower to Middle Miocene Brasso Formation at Brasso Village, Trinidad, have previously been used to distinguish three sample groupings (Beneath, Within and Above) around an oxygen minimum zone (OMZ), this being a layer of water within which dissolved oxygen concentrations can be as low as 0.1–1.0 mL/L. Using these same samples and the foraminiferal assemblage demarcations relative to the OMZ, this paper examines the associated and rich ostracode fauna of the Brasso Formation.The mean recovery of ostracode valves per sample was approximately three times greater in the Within OMZ sample group than in either of the Beneath OMZ or Above OMZ groups, perhaps reflecting the exclusion of macro-predators from within the OMZ. Individual rarefaction of species richness S to N = 300 valves was conducted for each sample group. This showed that S did not differ between the sample groups, ranging from 22.4 to 24.8. We used all ostracode species to model group separation. Based upon the Mahalanobis’ criterion, we obtained significant group separation using a model with four taxa: Munseyella ex gr. minuta, Argilloecia posterotruncata, Munseyella sp. and Xestoleberis sp., while a fifth, Argilloecia spp., provided a significant but minor increase in separation probabilities over all groups. The two most abundant species (Bradleya sp., Gangamocytheridea reticulata) were thus not the best species for detecting the OMZ. Platycopid ostracodes of the genus Cytherella were found throughout the section, rather than concentrated within the OMZ, which contradicts the Platycopid Signal Hypothesis that OMZs are characterized by platycopid dominance. The total distribution and turnover of both ostracodal and foraminiferal assemblages were compared and contrasted quantitatively using a total assemblage turnover index (ATI) and the paleoenvironmental importance evaluated. The correlated between-sample ATI is for both groups lowest within the OMZ.