Interpreting Biotic Interactions in the Fossil Record: Evidence and Evolutionary Significance

Fossil biotic interactions (fBIs) provide a critical but underutilized window into the ecological and evolutionary dynamics of life through time. Unlike modern ecological data, the fossil record captures the long-term consequences of short-term and local interactions, offering insights into biodiversity, extinction, adaptation, and ecosystem function. We review the contributions of the fossil record to studies of biotic interactions, propose a unified framework for reporting fBI data, and outline the interpretative challenges unique to fossils, including taphonomy and the inability to directly observe behavior. This review traces the process of knowledge creation from specimen-level evidence to inferred interactions, highlights insights gained from different fBI types, and advocates for standardized nomenclature and reporting. The fossil record is indispensable for understanding how interactions evolve, collapse, or persist across environmental crises, providing the foundation for linking organismal observations to evolutionary insights on how life has shaped—and been shaped by—biotic interactions.