CONCLUSIONS

Animated diagrams were demonstrated to be of practical use for the interpretation of multidimensional data showing microevolutionary patterns. Usually, morphometric measurements require massive statistical treatment before evolutionary trends come to the light. In the case of C. leptoporus the complex microevolutionary patterns could be visualized with animated scenes and so are more easily understood to the reader than the 'flat' contour diagrams presented in Knappertsbusch (2000). Most of the conclusions can be read in that study and are not here. In that study paleoenvironmental influences were suggested to explain at least partially the changes in coccolith morphology and the observed cladogenetic events. In the present contribution morphological changes are demonstrated as a function of latitude during an Early Pleistocene (1.8 - 1.6 Ma) time-slice, which further confirms an environmental control of coccolith morphology in the case of the extinct morphotypes A and B of the taxon C. leptoporus.

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