Linking zooplankton time series to the fossil record

Marine zooplankton time series are crucial to understand the dynamics of pelagic ecosystems. However, most observational time series are only a few decades long, which limits our understanding of long-term zooplankton dynamics, renders attribution of observed trends to global change ambiguous, and hampers prediction of future response to environmental change. Planktonic foraminifera are calcifying marine zooplankton that have the unique potential to substantially extend our view on plankton dynamics because their skeletal remains are preserved for millions of years in deep-sea sediments. Thus, linking sedimentary and modern time series offers great potential to study zooplankton dynamics across time scales not accessible by direct observations. However, this link is rarely made and the potential of planktonic foraminifera for advancing our understanding of zooplankton dynamics remains underexploited. This underutilization of this potential to bridge time scales is mainly because of the lack of collaboration between biologists, who have mostly focused on other (zoo)plankton, and micropalaeontologists, who have focussed too narrowly on fossil foraminifera. With this food for thought article, we aim to highlight the unique potential of planktonic foraminifera to bridge the gap between biology and geology. We strongly believe that such collaboration has large benefits to both scientific communities.