MARINE PALYNOLOGY: RECENT ADVANCES AND APPLICATIONS

Understanding causes and mechanisms of environmental change, including connections to climate change, ecosystem degradation due to natural variability, or anthropogenic activity, requires compilation of long term environmental data. When long-term measurements are scarce or unavailable, information can be obtained from sedimentary records that contain microfossils. Dinoflagellate cysts, along with other organic-walled palynomorphs, are an important group of microfossils that proven to be excellent paleoenvironmental indicators.

Dinoflagellates are the most diverse group of phytoplankton in coastal environments and one of the major primary producers. During their life cycle, many dinoflagellates produce highly resistant organic-walled resting cysts that accumulate in sediments and can be used for reconstructions of past and present sea-surface temperature, salinity, seasonal duration of sea-ice cover, and marine primary productivity. This presentation reviews the main challenges and progress in dinoflagellate cyst research. It will also highlight results of the ongoing extensive collaborative investigation of cyst taxonomy, diversity, ecology and high-resolution cyst-based paleoenvironmental reconstructions in coastal waters of western Canada, United States and Mexico.