Here we have evaluated and compared two benthic foraminiferal records derived from sedimentary salt-marsh archives from the south-eastern North Sea coast, covering the past ~100 years. The particular focus was on the agglutinated benthic salt-marsh foraminifera Entzia macrescens, finding a rising number of deformed tests at times of strengthened North Sea storminess and associated more frequent salt-marsh flooding between the mid-century and late 1980s. The study is based on sediment sequences GeoHH-FK (Friedrichskoog, Dithmarschen) and TB13-1 (Bay of Tümlau, Eiderstedt Peninsula; Müller-Navarra et al., 2019; doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2018.12.022) that were retrieved from the salt marshes' erosional cliffs in November 2016 and August 2013. Sediment sequence GeoHH-FK was sampled at 0.5 cm spacing, with every second sample considered for benthic foraminiferal analysis, resulting in a total of 116 samples. All samples were wet-sieved for the 63–500 µm sediment fraction and benthic foraminiferal analysis was based on allocate splits in order to obtain approximately 100 individuals per split. Subsequent taxonomical identification was carried out on the wet sediment samples. Normal and irregular tests of E. macrescens were distinguished and counted separately. The benthic foraminiferal record of TB13-1 was provided by Müller-Navarra et al. (2019; doi:10.1016/j.ecss.2018.12.022). As benthic foraminifera are very sensitive to environmental changes, the consideration of deformed tests of the salt-marsh indicator species E. macrescens allowed for the evaluation of the salt marshes' vulnerability to changing climate conditions, in dependence on the degree of their modification by human interventions.

Samples were wet split and the taxonomic identification was made on wet samples.