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Mitchell, Edward

Nom
Mitchell, Edward
Affiliation principale
Site web
Fonction
Professeur ordinaire
Email
edward.mitchell@unine.ch
Identifiants
https://libra.unine.ch/handle/123456789/357
_
0000-0003-0358-506X

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  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Assessing the responses of Sphagnum micro-eukaryotes to climate changes using high throughput sequencing
    (2020-9-18)
    Reczuga, Monika 
    ;
    Seppey, Christophe Victor William
    ;
    Mulot, Matthieu 
    ;
    Jassey, Vincent E.J.
    ;
    Buttler, Alexandre
    ;
    Slowinska, Sandra
    ;
    Slowinski, Michal
    ;
    Lara, Enrique 
    ;
    Lamentowicz, Mariusz
    ;
    Mitchell, Edward 
    Current projections suggest that climate warming will be accompanied by more frequent and severe drought events. Peatlands store ca. one third of the world’s soil organic carbon. Warming and drought may cause peatlands to become carbon sources through stimulation of microbial activity increasing ecosystem respiration, with positive feedback effect on global warming. Micro-eukaryotes play a key role in the carbon cycle through food web interactions and therefore, alterations in their community structure and diversity may affect ecosystem functioning and could reflect these changes. We assessed the diversity and community composition of Sphagnum-associated eukaryotic microorganisms inhabiting peatlands and their response to experimental drought and warming using high throughput sequencing of environmental DNA. Under drier conditions, micro-eukaryotic diversity decreased, the relative abundance of autotrophs increased and that of osmotrophs (including Fungi and Peronosporomycetes) decreased. Furthermore, we identified climate change indicators that could be used as early indicators of change in peatland microbial communities and ecosystem functioning. The changes we observed indicate a shift towards a more “terrestrial” community in response to drought, in line with observed changes in the functioning of the ecosystem.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Response of Sphagnum Peatland Testate Amoebae to a 1-Year Transplantation Experiment Along an Artificial Hydrological Gradient
    (2014-2-1)
    Marcisz, Katarzyna
    ;
    Fournier, Bertrand 
    ;
    Gilbert, Daniel
    ;
    Lamentowicz, Mariusz
    ;
    Mitchell, Edward 
    Peatland testate amoebae (TA) are well-established bioindicators for depth to water table (DWT), but effects of hydrological changes on TA communities have never been tested experimentally. We tested this in a field experiment by placing Sphagnum carpets (15 cm diameter) collected in hummock, lawn and pool microsites (origin) at three local conditions (dry, moist and wet) using trenches dug in a peatland. One series of samples was seeded with microorganism extract from all microsites. TA community were analysed at T0: 8–2008, T1: 5–2009 and T2: 8–2009. We analysed the data using conditional inference trees, principal response curves (PRC) and DWT inferred from TA communities using a transfer function used for paleoecological reconstruction. Density declined from T0 to T1 and then increased sharply by T2. Species richness, Simpson diversity and Simpson evenness were lower at T2 than at T0 and T1. Seeded communities had higher species richness in pool samples at T0. Pool samples tended to have higher density, lower species richness, Simpson diversity and Simpson Evenness than hummock and/or lawn samples until T1. In the PRC, the effect of origin was significant at T0 and T1, but the effect faded away by T2. Seeding effect was strongest at T1 and lowest vanished by T2. Local condition effect was strong but not in line with the wetness gradient at T1 but started to reflect it by T2. Likewise, TA-inferredDWTstarted to match the experimental conditions by T2, but more so in hummock and lawn samples than in pool samples. This study confirmed that TA responds to hydrological changes over a 1-year period. However, sensitivity of TA to hydrological fluctuations, and thus the accuracy of inferred DWT changes, was habitat specific, pool TA communities being least responsive to environmental changes. Lawns and hummocks may be thus better suited than pools for paleoecological reconstructions. This, however, contrasts with the higher prediction error and species’ tolerance for DWT with increasing dryness observed in transfer function models.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Testate amoebae (Protists) as palaeoenvironmental indicators in peatlands
    (2005)
    Lamentowicz, Mariusz
    ;
    Mitchell, Edward 
    Testate amoebae (or testaceans, Testacea, Arcellaceans) are unicellular eukaryotic organisms living in freshwater or most terrestrial habitats such as soils, mosses, lakes, rivers, as well as brackish habitats such as estuaries. They are very abundant in Sphagnum mosses, where they live in the top part of mosses and the oxygenated part of the peat. The tests (shells) of Tesiacea are well preserved in peat and to a lesser extent in lake sediments. Efforts should be concentrated on constructing reliable regional transfer functions (mathematical representation of relation of species to environmental variables — presence of particular taxa in fossil material is the function of past environmental pa- rameters). as they exist for some world areas, and there is a complete lack of them for central Europe. Polish data are ex- ceptionally important because Poland is under several contrasted climatic influences — from oceanic to continental. The comparison of our data on climatic tendencies with those from Western Europe and the rest of the world will show how similar or different the responses of Polish peatlands might be. The paper has three aims: (a) to present the need for ecological studies on testate amoebae in Central Europe, (b) to show the potential of reconstruction of past environment on the basis ofmultiproxy studies that include testate amoebae as an in- tegral part of the palaeoecology toolbox and (c) to put our research efforts on testate amoebae in Poland in a more global perspective.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Effect of taxonomic resolution on ecological and palaeoecological inference: a test using testate amoeba water table depth transfer functions
    Mitchell, Edward 
    ;
    Lamentowicz, Mariusz
    ;
    Payne, Richard J
    ;
    Mazei, Yuri
    Sound taxonomy is a major requirement for quantitative environmental reconstruction using biological data. Transfer function performance should theoretically be expected to decrease with reduced taxonomic resolution. However for many groups of organisms taxonomy is imperfect and species level identification not always possible. We conducted numerical experiments on five testate amoeba water table (DWT) transfer function data sets. We sequentially reduced the number of taxonomic groups by successively merging morphologically similar species and removing inconspicuous species. We then assessed how these changes affected model performance and palaeoenvironmental reconstruction using two fossil data sets. Model performance decreased with decreasing taxonomic resolution, but this had only limited effects on patterns of inferred DWT, at least to detect major dry/wet shifts. Higher-resolution taxonomy may however still be useful to detect more subtle changes, or for reconstructed shifts to be significant.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Dispersal limitations and historical factors determine the biogeography of specialized terrestrial protists
    Singer, David 
    ;
    Mitchell, Edward 
    ;
    Payne, Richard J
    ;
    Blandenier, Quentin 
    ;
    Duckert, Clément
    ;
    Fernández, Leonardo D
    ;
    Fournier, Bertrand 
    ;
    Hernández, Cristián E
    ;
    Granath, Gustaf
    ;
    Rydin, Håkan
    ;
    Bragazza, Luca
    ;
    Koronatova, Natalia G
    ;
    Goia, Irina
    ;
    Harris, Lorna I
    ;
    Kajukało, Katarzyna
    ;
    Kosakyan, Anush 
    ;
    Lamentowicz, Mariusz
    ;
    Kosykh, Natalia P
    ;
    Vellak, Kai
    ;
    Lara, Enrique 
    Recent studies show that soil eukaryotic diversity is immense and dominated by micro‐organisms. However, it is unclear to what extent the processes that shape the distribution of diversity in plants and animals also apply to micro‐organisms. Major diversification events in multicellular organisms have often been attributed to long‐term climatic and geological processes, but the impact of such processes on protist diversity has received much less attention as their distribution has often been believed to be largely cosmopolitan. Here, we quantified phylogeographical patterns in Hyalosphenia papilio, a large testate amoeba restricted to Holarctic Sphagnum‐dominated peatlands, to test if the current distribution of its genetic diversity can be explained by historical factors or by the current distribution of suitable habitats. Phylogenetic diversity was higher in Western North America, corresponding to the inferred geographical origin of the H. papilio complex, and was lower in Eurasia despite extensive suitable habitats. These results suggest that patterns of phylogenetic diversity and distribution can be explained by the history of Holarctic Sphagnum peatland range expansions and contractions in response to Quaternary glaciations that promoted cladogenetic range evolution, rather than the contemporary distribution of suitable habitats. Species distributions were positively correlated with climatic niche breadth, suggesting that climatic tolerance is key to dispersal ability in H. papilio. This implies that, at least for large and specialized terrestrial micro‐organisms, propagule dispersal is slow enough that historical processes may contribute to their diversification and phylogeographical patterns and may partly explain their very high overall diversity.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Soil protistology rebooted: 30 fundamental questions to start with
    Geisen, Stefan
    ;
    Mitchell, Edward 
    ;
    Wilkinson, David M
    ;
    Adl, Sina
    ;
    Bonkowski, Michael
    ;
    Brown, Matthew W
    ;
    Fiore-Donno, Anna Maria
    ;
    Heger, Thierry 
    ;
    Jassey, Vincent E.J
    ;
    Krashevska, Valentyna
    ;
    Lahr, Daniel J.G
    ;
    Marcisz, Katarzyna
    ;
    Mulot, Matthieu 
    ;
    Payne, Richard
    ;
    Singer, David 
    ;
    Anderson, Roger O
    ;
    Charman, Dan J
    ;
    Ekelund, Flemming
    ;
    Griffiths, Bryan S
    ;
    Rønn, Regin
    ;
    Smirnov, Alexey
    ;
    Bass, David
    ;
    Belbahri, Lassaâd 
    ;
    Berney, Cédric
    ;
    Blandenier, Quentin 
    ;
    Blandenier, Quentin
    ;
    Chatzinotas, Antonis
    ;
    Clarholm, Marianne
    ;
    Dunthorn, Micah
    ;
    Feest, Alan
    ;
    Fernández, Leonardo D
    ;
    Foissner, Wilhelm
    ;
    Fournier, Bertrand 
    ;
    Gentekaki, Eleni
    ;
    Hájek, Michal
    ;
    Helder, Johannes
    ;
    Jousset, Alexandre
    ;
    Koller, Robert
    ;
    Kumar, Santosh
    ;
    La Terza, Antonietta
    ;
    Lamentowicz, Mariusz
    ;
    Mazei, Yuri
    ;
    Santos, Susana S
    ;
    Seppey, Christophe V.W
    ;
    Spiegel, Frederick W
    ;
    Walochnik, Julia
    ;
    Winding, Anne
    ;
    Lara, Enrique 
    Protists are the most diverse eukaryotes. These microbes are keystone organisms of soil ecosystems and regulate essential processes of soil fertility such as nutrient cycling and plant growth. Despite this, protists have received little scientific attention, especially compared to bacteria, fungi and nematodes in soil studies. Recent methodological advances, particularly in molecular biology techniques, have made the study of soil protists more accessible, and have created a resurgence of interest in soil protistology. This ongoing revolution now enables comprehensive investigations of the structure and functioning of soil protist communities, paving the way to a new era in soil biology. Instead of providing an exhaustive review, we provide a synthesis of research gaps that should be prioritized in future studies of soil protistology to guide this rapidly developing research area. Based on a synthesis of expert opinion we propose 30 key questions covering a broad range of topics including evolution, phylogenetics, functional ecology, macroecology, paleoecology, and methodologies. These questions highlight a diversity of topics that will establish soil protistology as a hub discipline connecting different fundamental and applied fields such as ecology, biogeography, evolution, plant-microbe interactions, agronomy, and conservation biology. We are convinced that soil protistology has the potential to be one of the most exciting frontiers in biology.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    Response of Sphagnum Peatland Testate Amoebae to a 1-Year Transplantation Experiment Along an Artificial Hydrological Gradient
    Marcisz, Katarzyna
    ;
    Fournier, Bertrand 
    ;
    Gilbert, Daniel
    ;
    Lamentowicz, Mariusz
    ;
    Mitchell, Edward 
    Peatland testate amoebae (TA) are well-established bioindicators for depth to water table (DWT), but effects of hydrological changes on TA communities have never been tested experimentally. We tested this in a field experiment by placing Sphagnum carpets (15 cm diameter) collected in hummock, lawn and pool microsites (origin) at three local conditions (dry, moist and wet) using trenches dug in a peatland. One series of samples was seeded with microorganism extract from all microsites. TA community were analysed at T0: 8–2008, T1: 5–2009 and T2: 8–2009. We analysed the data using conditional inference trees, principal response curves (PRC) and DWT inferred from TA communities using a transfer function used for paleoecological reconstruction. Density declined from T0 to T1 and then increased sharply by T2. Species richness, Simpson diversity and Simpson evenness were lower at T2 than at T0 and T1. Seeded communities had higher species richness in pool samples at T0. Pool samples tended to have higher density, lower species richness, Simpson diversity and Simpson Evenness than hummock and/or lawn samples until T1. In the PRC, the effect of origin was significant at T0 and T1, but the effect faded away by T2. Seeding effect was strongest at T1 and lowest vanished by T2. Local condition effect was strong but not in line with the wetness gradient at T1 but started to reflect it by T2. Likewise, TA-inferred DWT started to match the experimental conditions by T2, but more so in hummock and lawn samples than in pool samples. This study confirmed that TA responds to hydrological changes over a 1-year period. However, sensitivity of TA to hydrological fluctuations, and thus the accuracy of inferred DWT changes, was habitat specific, pool TA communities being least responsive to environmental changes. Lawns and hummocks may be thus better suited than pools for paleoecological reconstructions. This, however, contrasts with the higher prediction error and species’ tolerance for DWT with increasing dryness observed in transfer function models.
  • Publication
    Accès libre
    The performance of single- and multi-proxy transfer functions (testate amoebae, bryophytes, vascular plants) for reconstructing mire surface wetness and pH
    Mitchell, Edward 
    ;
    Payne, Richard J.
    ;
    van der Knaap, Willem O.
    ;
    Lamentowicz, Łukasz
    ;
    Gąbka, Maciej
    ;
    Lamentowicz, Mariusz
    Peatlands are widely exploited archives of paleoenvironmental change. We developed and compared multiple transfer functions to infer peatland depth to the water table (DWT) and pH based on testate amoeba (percentages, or presence/absence), bryophyte presence/absence, and vascular plant presence/absence data from sub-alpine peatlands in the SE Swiss Alps in order to 1) compare the performance of single-proxy vs. multi-proxy models and 2) assess the performance of presence/absence models. Bootstrapping cross-validation showing the best performing single-proxy transfer functions for both DWT and pH were those based on bryophytes. The best performing transfer functions overall for DWT were those based on combined testate amoebae percentages, bryophytes and vascular plants; and, for pH, those based on testate amoebae and bryophytes. The comparison of DWT and pH inferred from testate amoeba percentages and presence/absence data showed similar general patterns but differences in the magnitude and timing of some shifts. These results show new directions for paleoenvironmental research, 1) suggesting that it is possible to build good-performing transfer functions using presence/absence data, although with some loss of accuracy, and 2) supporting the idea that multi-proxy inference models may improve paleoecological reconstruction. The performance of multi-proxy and single-proxy transfer functions should be further compared in paleoecological data.