Ecology of testate amoebae and their potential use as palaeohydrologic indicators from peatland in Sanjiang Plain, Northeast China

doi:10.1007/s11707-014-0435-x

Front. Earth Sci.

2014, Vol. 8

Issue (4) : 564-572 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-014-0435-x

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Ecology of testate amoebae and their potential use as palaeohydrologic indicators from peatland in Sanjiang Plain, Northeast China

Lihong SONG^1,²,Hongkai LI³,Kehong WANG^1,²,Donghui WU^1,^*(

),Haitao WU¹

1. Key Laboratory of Wetland Ecology and Environment, Northeast Institute of Geography and Agroecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changchun 130102, China
2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3. Institute for Peat and Mire Research, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China

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Abstract

Testate amoebae are sensitive indicators of substrate moisture in peatlands. Over the last decades, they have been studied to reconstruct hydrological changes since the Holocene. However, these studies have been geographically restricted to North America and Europe. We conducted the first investigation of testate amoebae on the largest continental fresh water wetland in the Sanjiang Plain, China. The objectives of this study were to provide baseline data on the ecology of testate amoebae in the peatlands of Northeast China and to assess the potential of using them as environmental indicators in this ecosystem. We examined modern testate amoeba assemblages and species-environmental relationships at 46 microsites within 5 waterlogged depressions. The environmental parameters measured included: depth to water table, pH, and loss on ignition. The results showed that the dominant species were Trinema complanatum type, Euglypha rotunda type, Euglypha strigosa type, and Centropyxis cassis type. Redundancy analysis demonstrates that water table depth has the most important effect on testate amoeba assemblages, explaining 16.7% (p=0.002) of the total variance. pH was not a statistically significant factor for testate amoeba assemblages. Weighted averaging and weighted averaging partial least squares models were used to build transfer functions for depth to water table. The best performing transfer function was generated by the weighted averaging partial least squares model with an r²_LOSO of 0.62 and RMSEP_LOSO of 6.96 cm. Results indicate that testate amoebae in waterlogged depression peatland have the potential to be used as indicators for hydrological changes and for palaeohydrologic reconstructions in the Sanjiang Plain.

Keywords palaeoecology peatland testate amoebae transfer function Sanjiang Wetland Northeast China

Corresponding Author(s): Donghui WU

Online First Date: 30 April 2014 Issue Date: 13 January 2015

Cite this article:

Lihong SONG,Hongkai LI,Kehong WANG, et al. Ecology of testate amoebae and their potential use as palaeohydrologic indicators from peatland in Sanjiang Plain, Northeast China[J]. Front. Earth Sci., 2014, 8(4): 564-572.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/10.1007/s11707-014-0435-x
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/Y2014/V8/I4/564

Fig.1 Location of the Sanjiang Plain (? study area).

Tab.1 Combinations and means of separation of some testate amoeba species differing from Charman et al. (2000)

Fig.2 Bioplot of redundancy analysis (RDA) on all data. (a) Species and environmental variables. Species codes: Sp1, Arcella catinus type; Sp2, Arcella dentata; Sp3, Arcella discoides type; Sp4, Arcella gibbosa type; Sp5, Arcella hemisphaerica; Sp6, Arcella vulgaris; Sp7, Argynnia dentistoma; Sp8, Assulina muscorum; Sp9, Centropyxis aculeata type; Sp10, Centropyxis cassis type; Sp11, Centropyxis platystoma type; Sp12, Cyclopyxis arcelloides type; Sp13, Corythion dubium; Sp14, Corythion pulchellum; Sp15, Difflugia bacillariarum; Sp16, Difflugia bacillifera; Sp17, Difflugia lucida type; Sp18, Difflugia pristis type; Sp19, Difflugia oblonga; Sp20, Difflugia sp.; Sp21, Euglypha acanthophora; Sp22, Euglypha strigosa type; Sp23, Euglypha cristata; Sp24, Euglypha rotunda type; Sp25, Euglypha tuberculata; Sp26, Heleopera petricola type; Sp27, Heleopera rosea; Sp28, Nebela collaris; Sp29, Nebela penardiana; Sp30, Nebela carinata; Sp31, Nebela tubulosa; Sp32, Lesquereusia epistomium; Sp33, Lesquereusia spiralis; Sp34, Placocista glabra; Sp35, Trinema complanatum type; Sp36,Trinema lineare; Sp37, Cryptodifflugia oviformis; Sp38, Sphenoderia lenta; Sp39, Tracheleuglypha dentata. (b) RDA sampling plots and hydrological variables bioplot. Larger circles represent the higher values of relative depth to water table.

Tab.2 Results of redundancy analysis of testate amoeba data, showing percentage variance explained using various combinations of variables and co-variables and the p-value determined by Monte-Carlo permutations tests (499 permutations)

Fig.3 Segment-wise RMSEP for the highest performing WAPLS model. Sampling distribution of the dataset was evenly divided into 10 segments.

Fig.4 Bioplot of observed vs. predicted depth to water table (DWT). (a) Prediction resulting from the weighted averaging model. (b) Prediction resulting from the weighted averaging partial least squares model.

Fig.5 Testate amoeba taxa optima and tolerances for water table depth based on weighted averaging.

Tab.3 Transfer function performance of models for DWT

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