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Environmental controls on peatland testate amoebae (Protozoa: Rhizopoda) in the North of Ireland: Implications for Holocene palaeoclimate studies

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Abstract

The environmental controls on modern peatland testate amoebae (Protozoa: Rhizopoda) in the North of Ireland were investigated to assess the potential for Holocene palaeoclimate research within this region. Canonical Correspondence Analysis (CCA) revealed that hydrological factors (water table depth and moisture content) are the most important abiotic controls on organism distribution. A series of partial CCAs showed that water table depth explains 15.8% and moisture content explains 5.5% of the total variance. Monte-Carlo permutation tests showed that the results are highly significant (p < 0.002; p < 0.040 respectively). Transfer functions were generated for water table depth using weighted averaging tolerance downweighted (WA-Tol) regression and for moisture content using weighted averaging partial least squares regression (WA-PLS). The performance of the models was assessed using leave-one-out cross-validation (jacknifing). After removal of outlier samples, the improved transfer functions were found to perform well with an r 2jack and root mean square error of predictionjack of 0.83, 4.99 cm for water table depth and 0.76, 4.60% for moisture content respectively. The water table transfer function was applied to a fossil peat sequence from this region and reconstruction errors were generated by 1,000 bootstrap cycles. The water table reconstruction was also carried out using an established pan-European transfer function and was found to be similar to that based on the North of Ireland dataset. This demonstrates the persistent and comparable control of hydrological variables on the distribution of testate amoebae taxa across Europe and implies that regional training sets can suffice as long as no-analogue situations are not encountered.

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Notes

  1. The water table depths presented in this paper are expressed as positive values if they are below ground and negative values for standing water. This is to enable direct comparisons with the reconstructions from the ACCROTELM project (Charman et al. 2007; Sillasoo et al. 2007), and is opposite to what has been presented in previous work from the North of Ireland (Swindles 2006; Swindles et al. 2007a, b).

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Acknowledgements

This research was undertaken while Graeme Swindles was funded by a Ph.D. studentship from the Department of Employment and Learning, Northern Ireland at Queen’s University, Belfast. We would like to thank Gill Alexander, Yoma Megarry, John Meneely and Maura Pringle for technical assistance. Special thanks go to Julia Simpson and John McAlister for carrying out the chemical analysis of the water samples. Many thanks to Jaime Escobar and one anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Archaeological, Geographical and Environmental Sciences (AGES), School of Life Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford, BD7 1DP, UK

    G. T. Swindles

  2. School of Geography, Faculty of Social Science and Business, University of Plymouth, Drake Circus, Plymouth, PL4 8AA, UK

    D. J. Charman

  3. School of Geography, Archaeology and Palaeoecology, Queen’s University Belfast, Belfast, BT7 1NN, Northern Ireland, UK

    H. M. Roe

  4. High Weald AONB Unit, Woodland Enterprise Centre, Hastings Road, Flimwell, East Sussex, TN5 7PR, UK

    P. A. Sansum

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  1. G. T. Swindles
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Swindles, G.T., Charman, D.J., Roe, H.M. et al. Environmental controls on peatland testate amoebae (Protozoa: Rhizopoda) in the North of Ireland: Implications for Holocene palaeoclimate studies. J Paleolimnol 42, 123–140 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10933-008-9266-7

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