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
Rights
© 2018 Elsevier GmbH. This work has been made available online in accordance with the publisher’s policies. This is the author created, accepted version manuscript following peer review and may differ slightly from the final published version. The final published version of this work is available at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejop.2018.03.002
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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