The Mediterranean Sea is a miniature ocean ideal to test the response of marine ecosystems to amplified orbital and suborbital climate changes. Here we present coccolith data from a Sardinia Channel gravity core (Arcose C_33) analysed over the last 145,000 years, with a mean resolution of about 900 years. The study highlights that regional phytoplankton assemblages underwent significant modifications between the penultimate glacial and the last interglacial, as well as between the last glacial and the Holocene. The N ratio palaeoproductivity index suggests reduced productivity levels and the development of a deep nutricline during the last interglacial and the Holocene Within the last glacial period, many taxa exhibit abundance fluctuations that parallel oscillations in δ18O values of Globigerina bulloides tests. Heinrich events and Stadials seem to be associated with drops in primary productivity levels, as already observed in the Alboran Sea and the Sicily Channel.