Modelling hydrological relationships of testate amoebae (Protozoa: Rhizopoda) on New Zealand peatlands

Charman, Dan J.

doi:10.1080/03014223.1997.9517549

Cited by 94 publications

(101 citation statements)

References 21 publications

(22 reference statements)

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“…In agreement with previous work, the largest dispersion as well as the highest prediction error were observed in sites with the deepest water level [15,49]. In Switzerland and France, prediction errors were largest for water table depth situated over 60 cm [49,50].…”

Section: Comparison With Previous Studiessupporting

confidence: 91%

“…4a). A similar pattern of optimum and tolerance has been recorded in New Zealand, Switzerland and France [15,49]. This suggests that hollow and lagg testate amoebae or Sphagnum species appear to be more sensitive than hummock species to changes in water table depth conditions.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 74%

“…Using our data from Polish peatlands, water table depth can be inferred from testate amoebae assemblages with a mean estimated error of ±9.89 cm-model WA(tol). The RMSEP values of previous studies were 6.32 for Canada [21], 8.98 in New Zealand, [15], 5.45 in Russia [10], and 7.67 in the USA [11,12].…”

Section: Comparison With Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 88%

“…Sampling methods were based on previous studies [15,22,48,49,80]. In Jelenia Wyspa mire a transect approach was chosen to span the hydrological and nutrient gradient from fen to Sphagnum peatland.…”

Section: Study Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This species was found in very wet habitats in Poland (DWT optimum = 2.2 cm) as well as in Canada, Switzerland, and Great Britain [15,49,80]. However it was found in intermediate conditions in the USA and Canada [11,72] and in very dry conditions in Finland and New Zealand [15,71]. Cyclopxis areelloides is considered by some authors as a species complex [20].…”

Section: Comparison With Previous Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Ecology of Testate Amoebae (Protists) in Sphagnum in North-western Poland in Relation to Peatland Ecology

2005

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We studied the relationship between testate amoebae (Protozoa) communities and the depth to the water table (DWT), pH, conductivity, and microhabitat type in Sphagnum dominated peatlands of north-western Poland and built predictive (transfer function) models for inferring DWT and pH based on the testate amoebae community structure. Such models can be used for peatland monitoring and paleoecology. A total of 52 testate amoebae taxa were recorded. In a redundancy analysis, DWT and pH explained 20.1% of the variation in the species data and allowed us to identify three groups of taxa: species that are associated with (1) high DWT and low pH, (2) low DWT and low pH, and (3) high pH and mid-range DWT. Our transfer function models allow DWT and pH to be estimated with mean errors of 9.89 cm and 0.71 pH units. The prediction error of the DWT model and the tolerance of the species both increase with increasing dryness. This pattern mirrors the ecology of Sphagnum mosses: Species growing in wet habitats are more sensitive to change in water table depth than the species growing in drier microhabitats. Our results are consistent with studies of testate amoeba ecology in other regions, and they provide additional support for the use of these organisms in paleoecological and biomonitoring contexts. IntroductionTestate amoebae are unicellular organisms living in a variety of habitats including lakes and mires [3,32,65]. Sphagnum peatlands are characterized by a high diversity of microhabitats in which many testate amoebae species occur. Testate amoebae produce shells (tests) that can be proteinaceous, pseudochitinous, or agglutinated with one or two pseudostome(s) and are diagnostic for identification [70,77]. Testate amoebae are an important component in the soil microbial food web. Together with other protozoans, testate amoebae are believed to regulate bacterial populations [31] and to play a role in nutrient mineralization and plant growth [29]. Some species are mixotrophic and contain endosymbiotic algae [63].Many species have well-defined ecological preferences, and this stenotopy makes them very useful bioindicators [30,47]. Previous studies have shown that the abundance of each taxon and hence the structure of communities are controlled by a set of environmental variables. Water availability (moisture or water table depth) was often identified as being the single most important factor controlling testate amoebae community composition on peatlands, the second most important variable usually being pH [4-6, 10-12, 15, 21, 45, 46, 48, 49, 71, 76]. The correlation between testate amoebae communities and moisture conditions is increasingly used to infer palaeohydrological changes in peatlands and, in the case of ombrotrophic peatlands, these data are ultimately used to infer past climate changes [13, 16-19, 35, 44, 79]. In addition to paleoecology, testate amoebae research can be applied to environmental monitoring of natural ecosystems and those affected by human activities. Examples include the monitoring of lak...

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