Testate amoebae as paleohydrological indicators in the boreal and subarctic permafrost mires in the western part of the central Siberian Plateau

Carbon storage capacity of peat deposits in permafrost mires is highly sensitive to climate change which effects might be strongly mediated by mire moisture and permafrost. Thus, it is essential to develop appropriate indicator tools of hydrological regime which can be used for monitoring present and past conditions in these mires. We use testate amoebae to investigate their indicator value to water table depth (WTD) and substrate water content (SWC) and to develop transfer functions for quantitative reconstructions of these environmental characteristics in the permafrost mires on the Central Siberian Plateau. In many cased, direct measurement of WTD in permafrost mires are not possible due to the presence of ice, so that SWC can be used as an alternative characteristic. Overall, 330 surface samples were collected in five study regions together with the corresponding environmental measurements. We find that testate amoebae form diverse assemblages with the species structure strongly controlled by WTD and SWC. We developed two testate amoeba-based transfer functions to reconstruct these characteristics based on Modern Analogue Technique which were assessed using leave-one-out and bootstrap cross-validation. We find that both transfer functions have good predictive power (for WTD: RMSEP = 6.8–7.6 cm, R2 = 0.54, for SWC: RMSEP = 2.0–2.3 %, R2 = 0.74–0.76). The ecological preferences of the majority of testate amoebae were similar to those reported by the studies in lower-latitudes, although some hydrophilic taxa were observed in the drier end of the surface wetness gradient. These data represent an important source for improvement of quantitative reconstructions based on subfossil testate amoebae in permafrost mires. •New testate amoeba-based transfer functions for permafrost mires in Middle Siberia.•Both water table depth and substrate moisture content show comparable results.•Ecological optima of hydrophilic taxa were shifted towards the drier sites.