Response of testate amoebae to a late Holocene ecosystem shift in an Amazonian peatland
Abstract
To date there have only been two studies using testate amoebae as palaeoecological indicators in tropical peatlands. Here we present a new ∼500-year testate amoeba record from San Jorge, a domed peatland in Peruvian Amazonia, which has a well-constrained vegetation history based on pollen analysis. We observe a major shift from Hyalosphenia subflava to Cryptodifflugia oviformis-dominated communities at ∼50 cm depth (c. AD 1760), which suggests a change to drier conditions in the peatland. The application of a statistical transfer function also suggests a deepening of the water table at this time. The transition in the microbial assemblage occurs at a time when pollen and geochemical data indicate drier conditions (reduced influence of river flooding), leading to an ecosystem switch to more ombrotrophic-like conditions in the peatland. Our work illustrates the potential of testate amoebae as important tools in tropical peatland palaeoecology, and the power of multiproxy approaches for understanding the long-term development of tropical peatlands.
Citation
Swindles , G T , Kelly , T J , Roucoux , K H & Lawson , I T 2018 , ' Response of testate amoebae to a late Holocene ecosystem shift in an Amazonian peatland ' , European Journal of Protistology , vol. 64 , pp. 13-19 . https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejop.2018.03.002
Publication
European Journal of Protistology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0932-4739Type
Journal article
Description
This work is funded by a Royal Society research grant to GTS (grant no. 481831). We acknowledge a quota PhD studentship, a radiocarbon facility grant (ref. 1747.1013) and a project grant (ref. NE/H011773/1) from the Natural Environmental Research Council (NERC).Collections
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