Assessing the responses of micro-eukaryotes to climate changes using high throughput sequencing.

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.

Predator-prey mass ratio drives microbial activity under dry conditions in peatlands.

Mid- to high-latitude peatlands are a major terrestrial carbon stock but become carbon sources during droughts, which are increasingly frequent as a result of climate warming. A critical question within this context is the sensitivity to drought of peatland microbial food webs. Microbiota drive key ecological and biogeochemical processes, but their response to drought is likely to impact these processes.

Tipping point in plant-fungal interactions under severe drought causes abrupt rise in peatland ecosystem respiration.

Ecosystems are increasingly prone to climate extremes, such as drought, with long-lasting effects on both plant and soil communities and, subsequently, on carbon (C) cycling. However, recent studies underlined the strong variability in ecosystem's response to droughts, raising the issue of nonlinear responses in plant and soil communities. The conundrum is what causes ecosystems to shift in response to drought.

Arcella peruviana sp. nov. (Amoebozoa: Arcellinida, Arcellidae), a new species from a tropical peatland in Amazonia.

There has only been one study on the ecology of testate amoebae from Amazonian peatlands, despite Amazonia being a biodiversity hotspot of global importance. During analysis of litter samples from Aucayacu peatland, western (Peruvian) Amazonia, we discovered a testate amoeba with a distinct morphology unlike any other species reported previously. We describe a new species, Arcella peruviana, based on its distinct morphology, compare it to morphologically similar species and provide information about its ecology.