Mitchell, Edward

2001, Mitchell, Edward, Gilbert, Daniel, Butler, Alexandre, Grosvernier, Philippe, Albinsson, Christer, Rydin, Hakan, Buttler, Alexandre, Heijmans, Monique, Hoosbeek, Marcel, Greenup, Alisson, Foot, Jonathan, Saarinen, Timo, Vasander, Harri, Gobat, Jean-Michel

1999, Mitchell, Edward, Gilbert, Daniel, Butler, Alexandre, Grosvernier, Philippe, Albinsson, Christer, Rydin, Hakan, Heijmans, Monique, Hoosbeek, Marcel, Greenup, Alisson, Foot, Jonathan, Saarinen, Timo, Vasander, Harri, Gobat, Jean-Michel, Visconti, Guido, Beniston, Martin, Iannorelli, Emilio D, Barba, Diego

To monitor global change, large scale long term studies are needed. Such studies often focus on vegetation, but most plant species have limited distribution areas. Micro-organisms by contrast are mostly cosmopolitan in their distributions. To study the relationships between organisation groups, we analysed the testate amoebae (Protozoa), vegetation, and water chemistry of five Sphagnum peatlands across Europe. Inter-site differences were more pronounced for the vegetation than for testate amoebae species assemblage. Testate amoebae represent a useful tool in multi-site studies and environmental monitoring of peatlands because: 1) the number of species is much higher than for plants, 2) most species are cosmopolitan and are therefore less affected by biogeographical distribution patterns than plants; thus differences in restate amoebae assemblages can be interpreted primarily in terms of ecology, 3) restate amoebae can be used to analyse and monitor small scale (cm) gradients that play a major role in the functioning of peatland ecosystems. We further studied the effect of elevated CO2 on microbial communities in the same peatlands. Elevated COL increased the biomass of heterotrophic bacteria and decreased the biomass of medium size protozoa (mostly small restate amoebae). These effects suggest changes in community functioning that may have feedback effects on other components of the ecosystem.

2000, Mitchell, Edward, Buttler, Alexandre, Grosvernier, Philippe, Rydin, Hakan, Albinsson, Christer, Greenup, Alisson, Heijmans, Monique, Hoosbeek, Marcel, Saarinen, Timo

To study the relationships between groups of organisms and the degree to which these relationships are consistent across major climatic gradients, we analysed the testate amoeba (Protozoa) communities, vegetation and water chemistry of one peatland in five countries: Switzerland, The Netherlands, Great Britain, Sweden and Finland, as part of the BERI (Bog Ecosystem Research Initiative) project. The relationships between the different data sets and subsets were investigated by means of detrended correspondence analysis, canonical correspondence analysis and Mantel permutation tests. The comparison of data on vegetation and testate amoebae showed that inter-site differences are more pronounced for the vegetation than for the testate amoebae species assemblage. Testate amoebae are a useful tool in multi-site studies and in environmental monitoring of peatlands because: (1) the number of species in Sphagnum-dominated peatlands is much higher than for mosses or vascular plants; (2) most peatland species are cosmopolitan in their distributions and therefore less affected than plants by biogeographical distribution patterns, thus differences in testate amoeba assemblages can be interpreted primarily in terms of ecology; (3) they are closely related to the ecological characteristics of the exact spot where they live, therefore they can be used to analyse small-scale gradients that play a major role in the functioning of peatland ecosystems. This study revealed the existence of small-scale vertical gradients within the vegetation and life-form niche separation in response to water chemistry. The deep-rooted plants such as Carex spp. and Eriophorum spp. are related to the chemistry of water sampled at or near the ground water table, whereas the mosses are not. Testate amoebae wereshown to be ecologically more closely related to the chemistry of water sampled at or near the water table level and to the mosses than to the deep-rooted plants.

2000, Buttler, Alexandre, Heijmans, Monique, Rydin, Hakan, Hoosbeek, Marcel, Mitchell, Edward, Vasander, Harri, Gilbert, Daniel, Grosvernier, Philippe, Albinsson, Christer, Greenup, Alisson, Foot, Jonathan, Saarinen, Timo, Gobat, Jean-Michel