本セッションは、微化石と微化石化生物を対象に、地球科学と生物学をつなぐ新たな学際的研究の展開を目指します。微化石は原生代から顕生代を通じて連続性のある豊富な化石記録を残しており、生層序や年代決定、古環境や生命進化の理解に欠かせない存在です。また、その生物鉱物には過去の海洋物理/化学環境、気候変動、さらには汚染の痕跡までもが記録されています。環境変化に対する高い感受性から、人新世における地球環境の変動を読み解く鍵としても注目されています。一方、化石化した微生物は真核生物の多様な系統を含み、生命進化の歴史をひも解く重要な手がかりになります。その中、近年の分子系統解析やメタバーコーディング、ゲノム解析、トランスクリプトーム解析などの技術革新により、生物多様性と代謝、進化の理解が飛躍的に進んでいます。さらに、生態学、細胞生物学、環境科学など隣接分野との連携も進み、微化石生物研究は学際研究の新たなハブとなりつつあります。本セッションでは、古環境、進化、生態、バイオモニタリング、生化学など、多様な視点からのご発表を歓迎します。生物進化の過去と未来をつなぐ討論に、ぜひご参加ください。

Our session aims to open a new window into interdisciplinary research bridging Earth Sciences and Biology, with a focus on microfossils and fossilized microorganisms.
Microfossils provide well-preserved and the most continuous fossil records throughout the Phanerozoic eon. Due to their high abundance, global distribution, and rapid evolutionary rates, they have long served as essential tools in geological studies: especially in biostratigraphy, chronology, paleoceanography, and paleontology. The biominerals of microfossils preserve signals of past ocean chemistry and climate changes, and even pollution events. As highly sensitive indicators of environmental change, they are invaluable not only for understanding deep-time Earth history but also for monitoring environmental shifts in the Anthropocene. Fossilized microorganisms diverse in nearly all major eukaryotic supergroups, offering a unique biological archive. In recent decades, rapid advancements in molecular biology have brought new dimensions to their study. Techniques such as molecular phylogenetics, metabarcoding, transcriptomics, and genomic analyses now provide new insights into the evolution, metabolisms, and diversification of microfossil organisms. These approaches also shed light on the intricate relationship between environmental change and biological evolution. As we broaden our scientific approaches to incorporate insights from ecology, cell biology, and environmental sciences, the study of fossilized microorganisms is becoming a hub for truly integrative science. We welcome contributions that explore evolutionary biology and the Earth history, ecology, biochemistry, biomonitoring applications, and other general aspects of microfossils and microorganisms. Join us in bridging the past and present to better understand the history and future of life on Earth.