Recent testate amoeba assemblages from the Kamchatka Peninsula (Russia)

• Main Author: Tsyganov, Andrey
• Other Authors: Bobrov, Anatoly, Babeshko, Kirill, Payne, Richard, Mazei, Yuri, Andrey Tsyganov
• Format: Dataset
• Language: unknown
• Published: 2020
• Subjects: Interdisciplinary sciences; Ecology; Protist; Paleoecology; envir; geo; Patagonia; Okhotsk; Pacific; Kamchatka Peninsula; Kamchatka; Alaska
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.17632/5wfpt9ycvk.1; https://doi.org/10.17632/5wfpt9ycvk

Testate amoebae are a polyphyletic group of protists characterised by a shell (‘test’). Testate amoebae have been identified in a wide range of terrestrial, freshwater and coastal habitats but are most frequently-recorded in moist, organic-rich soils. The ecology of testate amoebae has been widely-investigated in contemporary ecosystems in order to develop species-environment (‘transfer function’) models to quantify the palaeoecological record with such studies undertaken in locations from Patagonia to Alaska and Britain to China. However, knowledge of testate amoeba diversity and ecology remains geographically-biased and large areas of the global land surface have yet to receive any study at all. Beyond the potential for unrecorded taxa in these regions, such data gaps impair attempts to use testate amoebae to understand patterns of protist biogeography and to interpret past assemblages in the palaeoecological record. However, testate amoeba assemblages of the remote Kamchatka Peninsula remain uninvestigated so far. The Kamchatka Peninsula is located in the far northeast of Eurasia, between the Sea of Okhotsk to the west and the North Pacific Ocean to the east (51-60°N, ~160°E). The data set addresses the following research questions: What are the key components of the Kamchatka testate amoeba fauna? Are there local or regional endemics? What are the key environmental controls on testate amoeba assemblage structure? Can testate amoebae provide reliable palaeohydrological proxies in Kamchatka peatlands?