No abstract

Biomonitoring tools are useful to assess the impact of environmental changes on the functioning of ecosystems. Existing tools mostly require species identification, thus allowing to estimating changes in biodiversity, and possibly inferring ecosystem functioning, using functional diversity and traits based approaches. Testate amoebae are good indicators of surface moisture conditions in Sphagnum peatlands and are routinely used in palaeoecology. Their shells (tests), on which identification is based, can also be used to define functional traits and thus to infer changes in ecosystem functioning. We investigated the response of testate amoeba communities to manipulated water table depth (wet: −4 cm, intermediate: −15 cm, and dry: −25 cm) over time (seven time points, 19 months) using mesocosms by comparing two approaches: community structure and functional traits responses, using a combination of morphological (biovolume, length, aperture size and position) and physiological (mixotrophy/heterotrophy, shell material) traits. This is the first study investigating the effect of water table depth on testate amoeba assemblages over time using a mesocosm approach. Taxonomical and functional approaches showed similar response patterns, confirming that water level acted as a strong environmental filter. After one year Hyalosphenia papilio decreased in the dry treatment, and the community structure shifted towards a dominance of dry indicators (Nebela tincta complex, Corythion dubium, Euglypha compressa) and the selected functional traits (smaller, heterotrophic, compressed species, with a ventral aperture) corresponded to drought adaptations. In line with recent observational and transfer function studies exploring the use of testate amoebae functional traits, our experimental results illustrate how well-selected traits could be used to monitor the impact of present and past climatic changes on Sphagnum peatlands.

Decomposing vertebrate cadavers release large, localized inputs of nutrients. These temporally limited resource patches affect nutrient cycling and soil organisms. The impact of decomposing cadavers on soil chemistry is relevant to soil biology, as a natural disturbance, and forensic science, to estimate the postmortem interval. However, cadaver impacts on soils are rarely studied, making it difficult to identify common patterns. We investigated the effects of decomposing pig cadavers (Sus scrofa domesticus) on soil chemistry (pH, ammonium, nitrate, nitrogen, phosphorous, potassium and carbon) over a one-year period in a spruce-dominant forest. Four treatments were applied, each with five replicates: two treatments including pig cadavers (placed on the ground and hung one metre above ground) and two controls (bare soil and bags filled with soil placed on the ground i.e. "fake pig" treatment). In the first two months (15-59 days after the start of the experiment), cadavers caused significant increases of ammonium, nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (p<0.05) whereas nitrate significantly increased towards the end of the study (263-367 days; p<0.05). Soil pH increased significantly at first and then decreased significantly at the end of the experiment. After one year, some markers returned to basal levels (i.e. not significantly different from control plots), whereas others were still significantly different. Based on these response patterns and in comparison with previous studies, we define three categories of chemical markers that may have the potential to date the time since death: early peak markers (EPM), late peak markers (LPM) and late decrease markers (LDM). The marker categories will enhance our understanding of soil processes and can be highly useful when changes in soil chemistry are related to changes in the composition of soil organism communities. For actual casework further studies and more data are necessary to refine the marker categories along a more precise timeline and to develop a method that can be used in court.

a b s t r a c tMonitoring tools are needed to assess changes in peatland biotic communities and ecosystem functions in response to on-going climate and other environmental changes. Although the responses of soil organisms and plants to ecological gradients and perturbations do not always correlate, peatland monitoring is mainly based on vegetation surveys. Testate amoebae, a group of protists, are important contributors to carbon and nitrogen cycling in organic soils and are useful bioindicators in peatland ecology and paleoecology. There is however little comparative data on the value of testate amoebae, vascular plants and bryophytes as bioindicators of micro-environmental gradients in peatlands.We compared the relationships of testate amoebae, bryophytes, and vascular plants with soil temperature, water table depth, micro-habitats and the carbon and nitrogen content of Sphagnum mosses in four peatlands along a 1300 m altitudinal gradient in Switzerland. We used the full diversity of vascular plants and bryophyte but only a selection of ten easily identifiable testate amoeba morpho-taxa (i.e. species or species-complexes).Indirect and direct gradient ordinations, multiple factor analysis (MFA) and transfer function models for inferring water table depth showed that a selection of ten testate amoeba taxa are more powerful (% variance explained in RDA) and accurate (discrimination among habitats) indicators of local conditions (micro-habitat type, water table depth and Sphagnum C/N ratio) than the vegetation (vascular plants and bryophytes either individually or combined and considering the full diversity).Our study showed that a limited list of ten easily identifiable testate amoeba taxa have higher bioindication value than the full bryophytes and vascular plants. Furthermore, testate amoebae can be analyzed on samples collected at any season (accessibility allowing and if precise sampling sites are well marked) -a clear advantage for biomonitoring and can be used to infer past changes from the peat record at the same taxonomic resolution. This simple approach could therefore be very useful for biomonitoring of peatlands.

Sphagnum peatlands represent a globally significant pool and sink of carbon but these functions are threatened by ongoing climate change. Testate amoebae are useful bioindicators of hydrological changes, but little experimental work has been done on the impact of water table changes on communities. Using a mesocosm experimental setting that was previously used to assess the impact of drought disturbance on communities and ecosystem processes with three contrasted water table positions: wet (-4 cm), intermediate (-15 cm) and dry (-25 cm), we studied the capacity of testate amoeba communities to recover when the water table was kept at-10 cm for all plots. The overall experiment lasted three years. We assessed the taxonomic and functional trait responses of testate amoeba communities. The selected traits were hypothesised to be correlated to moisture content (response traits: shell size, aperture position) or trophic role (effect traits: mixotrophy, aperture size controlling prey range). During the disturbance phase, the mixotrophic species Hyalosphenia papilio dominated the wet and intermediate plots, while the community shifted to a dominance of "dry indicators" (Corythion dubium, Nebela tincta, Cryptodifflugia oviformis) and corresponding traits (loss of mixotrophy, and dominance of smaller taxa with ventral or ventral-central aperture) in dry plots. During the recovery phase we observed two contrasted trends in the previously wet and intermediate plots: communities remained similar where the Sphagnum carpet remained intact but species and traits indicators of drier conditions increased in plots where it had degraded. In the former dry plots, indicators and traits of wet conditions increased by the end of the experiment. This is one of the first experiment simulating a disturbance and subsequent recovery in ex-situ mesocosms of Sphagnum peatland focusing on the response of testate amoebae community structure as well as functional traits to water table manipulation. The results generally confirmed that testate amoebae respond within a few months to hydrological changes and thus represent useful bioindicators for assessing current and past hydrological changes in Sphagnum peatlands.