Do testate amoebae communities recover in concordance with vegetation after restoration of drained peatlands?

Abstract

The environmental importance of peatlands has stimulated efforts to restore their specific ecosystem structure and functions. Monitoring and assessment of the ecological state of the peatland is fundamental in restoration programmes. Most studies have focused on the responses of vegetation and, to a lesser extent, on testate amoebae (TA). To our knowledge, none have investigated whether these two groups show concordance in the context of restoration of drained peatland. Here we assess community concordance between TA and vegetation in boreal peatlands belonging to four different land use management classes (natural, drained, restored 3–7 years ago, and restored 9–12 years ago). TA and vegetation communities were concordant when all of the studied sites were compared. However, there was no concordance within management classes except for sites restored 3–7 years ago. We found that TA and vegetation communities are not surrogates of one another when measuring the success of restoration, and that thorough studies of both communities are required to build a holistic understanding of the changes during restoration from an ecosystem perspective. TA seemed to respond faster to changes caused by restoration and, hence, could be better early indicators of restoration success than plants. Furthermore, studies of the relationships between TA and plant communities could provide important insights to aid understanding of the link between the recovery of ecosystem structure and the reinstatement of ecosystem functions.