This session aims to present a wide spectrum of current research on benthic and planktonic foraminifera and brings together researchers investigating foraminiferal taxonomy, biostratigraphy, biodiversity, biogeography, ecology, evolution, classification, biology, and geochemistry amongst other topics. The session welcomes contributions focusing on the application of foraminifera as proxies for environmental and paleoenvironmental reconstruction, biostratigraphy, paleoclimate, paleoceanography, sea-level change, and population dynamics as well as modern experimental approaches and culture studies. The diverse session program will stimulate discussions and the exchange of ideas which will lay the foundations for future research on foraminifera.

This session will focus on studies that use fossils to link stratigraphic and paleobiologic patterns and processes. The distribution of taxa in time and space is controlled not only by ecological and evolutionary processes (e.g., taxa environmental niches, extinctions/originations), but also by sedimentary processes that govern where and when fossil-containing sediments are deposited and preserved. Stratigraphic, taphonomic and ecologic attributes of fossil assemblages can be potentially useful for detecting biological trends, environmental shifts and climate variability through time and space, correcting stratigraphic biases that affect the fossil record, or enhance sequence stratigraphic interpretations.​​​

This session aims at presenting a broad range of aspects on plankton in modern oceans and in the fossil record: biodiversity, biogeography, ecology, geochemistry and biostratigraphy.

Biological and ecological experimental studies in laboratory and nature, and their applications to the paleo- and future understanding of marine environments

In order to discuss Earth marine realms and answer questions about biotic evolution and ecosystem functioning in the Past, Present and Future, scientists try to take various laboratory- or natural-based experimental approaches. This includes experiments controlling environmental variables, experiments with stable or radioactive isotopic biomarkers, breeding experiments, genetic analyses (e.g. ancient DNA), or so-called natural laboratories (e.g. the Lessepsian invasion via the Suez Canal or natural CO2 vents functioning as ocean acidification analogues). Altogether, they unriddle faunal and ecosystem functional responses to changing connectivity patterns, habitat change or global change threats. These experimental approaches are effective to make clear how biotic evolution takes place in nature, how ecosystems also act as functional labs and how Earth systems have moved and can move dynamically. They enable us to make more robust projections into the future or decipher past ecosystem trajectories with potential analogues to future change. In this session we welcome contributions that use experimental approaches in this context, but also discussing biogeochemical proxies that fix information of past environmental change during biomineralization in calcareous or siliceous tests.