Microfossil Shells Are Carbon Story Tellers: Microfossil Communities: First Responders to Environmental Impacts

Abstract

Most microfossil organisms are visible only under a microscope and only a few of them are the cause of diseases. We all depend on microorganisms in the environment, because they recycle matter in nature, transforming complex compounds into simpler ones readily absorbed by others. “The storytellers of space and time” have particularities and habits, which tell pieces of the environmental puzzle in the present time and that of the past, because they respond quickly to changes in abiotic variables (temperature, oxygenation, pH, geoproperties) linked to abrupt cooling or warming in oceans worldwide. Extinction and recovery events with little migratory power recorded by microfossils illustrates the role of climate and oceanographic changes that drive the short and long-term successional changes in ocean ecosystems. Their sensitivity to natural changes, pollution or contamination, and the occurrence or absence of opportunistic species unravels dynamic and interesting data. This data shows that microfossil communities inter and intra competition patterns exist temporally and spatially, and is easily recorded in any environmental disturbance. These tiny beautifully articulated shells, of the thecamoebian “Freshwater Finders”, ostracode, the crustacean group of “predators in space and time”, nanofossils “the tiniest paleo watches”, radiolarians “the delicate sedimentary rock fairytale”, and the diatoms as “The beautifully done silicate factory”, and the last but not the least, the planktonic and benthic foraminifera as the “Glacial and interglacial calcareous factories” are all different actors on the stage. Planktonic are the “Big Ben of time”, and benthic are the “Small giants of show and tell in space and time”. All microfossils shells are proxies that provide opportunities to evaluate cycles of the “changing world” of marine communities today and into past millions of years. They clearly explain climate and environment since their abundance in the sediment corresponds to past fluctuations over time.