We used organic-walled microfossils to better define the Plio–Pleistocene transition (2.56 Ma) that is associated with the intensification of the Northern Hemisphere glaciation. The disappearance of species around 2.75 Ma reflects an ecological response accompanying the Greenland ice sheet growth. A strong regionalism marks the Labrador Sea and suggests cooler conditions than elsewhere in the North Atlantic, although our zone boundaries are contemporaneous with the eastern North Atlantic.

Changes in morphology during development can have profound impacts on an organism but are hard to quantify as we lack preservation in the fossil record. As they grow by adding chambers, planktic foraminifera are an ideal group to study changes in growth in development. We analyse four different species of Jurassic foraminifers using a micro-CT scanner. The low morphological variability suggests that strong constraints, described in the modern ocean, were already acting on Jurassic specimens.

New high-resolution microfossil record from a clay succession in the US Gulf Coastal Plain reveal more accurate age estimates for the critical Eocene–Oligocene transition (EOT), a global climate event marked by the rapid expansion of the first permanent Antarctic ice sheet 34 million years ago. These data suggest a coeval major increase in sedimentation rate. Future isotopic and palaeoecological work on this core can be more precisely integrated with other global records of the EOT.

The study assessed the population dynamics of living planktic foraminifers on a weekly, seasonal, and interannual timescale off the coast of Puerto Rico to improve our understanding of short- and long-term variations. The results indicate a seasonal change of the faunal composition, and over the last decades. Lower standing stocks and lower stable carbon isotope values of foraminifers in shallow waters can be linked to the hurricane Sandy, which passed the Greater Antilles during autumn 2012.

This paper records the spatial and temporal distribution of deep-sea benthic microfossils (Foraminifera, single-celled organisms) from the latest Oligocene to earliest Pliocene (about 28 to 4 million years ago) from Ocean Drilling Program cores in the southern Indian Ocean. Key taxa are illustrated and their stratigraphic distribution is presented as they respond to a period of marked global climatic changes, with a pronounced warm period in the mid-Miocene followed by subsequent cooling.