Tree encroachment may lead to functionally-significant changes in peatland testate amoeba communities
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Citation
Export citationPayne, R. J., Creevy, A., Malysheva, E., Ratcliffe, J. L., Andersen, R., Tsyganov, A. N., … Mazei, Y. (2016). Tree encroachment may lead to functionally-significant changes in peatland testate amoeba communities. Soil Biology & Biochemistry, 98, 18–21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soilbio.2016.04.002
Permanent Research Commons link: https://hdl.handle.net/10289/12763
Abstract
Climate change is likely to cause increased tree recruitment on open peatlands but we currently have little idea what consequences this vegetation change may have below-ground. Here we use transects across forested to open bog ecotones at three Russian peatland complexes to assess potential changes in the most abundant group of peatland protists – the testate amoebae. We show that the testate amoeba communities of forested and open bog are markedly different with a very abrupt boundary at, or near, the vegetation ecotone. Changes along our transects suggest that tree encroachment may reduce the trophic level of testate amoeba communities and reduce the contribution of mixotrophic testate amoebae to primary production. Our study strongly suggests that increased tree recruitment on open peatlands will have important consequences for both microbial biodiversity and microbially-mediated ecosystem processes.
Date
2016Type
Publisher
Elsevier
Rights
This is an author’s accepted version of an article published in the journal: Soil Biology & Biochemistry. © 2016 Elsevier.