Current climate and environmental changes strongly affect shallow marine and coastal areas like the Baltic Sea. The combination of foraminiferal geochemistry and environmental parameters demonstrates that in a highly variable setting like the Baltic Sea, it is possible to separate different environmental impacts on the foraminiferal assemblages and therefore use chemical factors to reconstruct how seawater temperature, salinity, and oxygen varied in the past and may vary in the future.

In this study we investigate consistency in species-level identifications and whether disagreements are predictable. Twenty-three scientists identified a set of 100 planktonic foraminifera, noting their confidence in each identification. The median accuracy of students was 57 %; 79 % for experienced researchers. Where they were confident in the identifications, the values are 75 % and 93 %, respectively. Accuracy was significantly higher if the students had been taught how to identify species.

We present an extensive overview of the organic microfossil remains found at Site U1357, Adélie Basin, East Antarctica. The organic microfossil remains are exceptionally well preserved and are derived from unicellular as well as higher organisms. We provide a morphological description, photographic images, and a discussion of the ecological preferences of the biological species from which the organic remains were derived.

Benthic foraminifera often colonize marine underwater vegetation in tropical regions. We studied these so-called epiphytic foraminifera in a shallow bay in the Bahamas. Here the foraminifera differed between types of vegetation, but sedimentological processes seem to be the main controller of the dead foraminifera in the sediment. This indicates that in carbonate platform regions, epiphytic foraminifera should only be used cautiously as direct indicators of past in situ marine vegetation.

In this study we investigate consistency in species-level identifications and whether disagreements are predictable. Overall, 21 researchers from across the globe identified sets of 300 specimens or digital images of planktonic foraminifera. Digital identifications tended to be more disparate. Participants trained by the same person often had more similar identifications. Disagreements hardly affected transfer-function temperature estimates but produced larger differences in diversity metrics.