Over the past several decades, our understanding of past global change has dramatically improved, in large part because of the detailed records of environmental change that have been obtained from lake and peatland sediments. Paleoecological and paleoclimate information preserved in sediment cores has provided important perspectives on historical climate variability, ecosystem responses to climate and other environmental changes, and a long-term context for understanding recent and ongoing global changes. However, regional-to-global scale syntheses of these data are critically important to understanding and anticipating the behavior of the earth system, and large, high-quality databases are required for this task.    

This collaborative project was focused on the continued development of the Neotoma Paleoecology Database (Neotomadb.org), a publicly available database that supports global-change research by providing a sustainable, community-curated repository for multiple kinds of paleoecological data. Lehigh University was one of nine collaborating institutions and was specifically tasked with the development of the testate amoeba database within Neotoma. Testate amoebae are amoeboid protists that produce morphologically distinct shells that preserve well in peatland and lacustrine environments, and their sensitivity to environmental conditions have made them useful paleoecological indicators of past environmental conditions. Numerous ecological and paleoecological studies on testate amoebae have occurred over the past several decades, but no central database existed to make these data easily available to the public and to the research community.

Two linked databases were developed as part of this project and incorporated into the larger Neotoma database structure, a stratigraphic database containing records of testate amoebae in peatland and lake cores, and a modern surface-sample database containing information on the present-day ecology of species. The latter provides an important source of information used to interpret stratigraphic data. Over 4500 surface-samples and associated environmental data (e.g., water-table depth, pH) were uploaded and integrated into the Neotoma surface-sample database. A large-scale synthesis project was undertaken as part of the development of this surface-sample database, and provided insight into the utility and broad applicability of testate amoebae as indicators of past peatland moisture across Europe and North America. Several other synthesis projects have been enabled by the development of the database and are currently ongoing. Nearly 100 stratigraphic records containing testate amoebae have now been made publicly available through Neotoma. Testate amoeba data is accessible through the online Neotoma explorer (Neotomadb.org), where stratigraphic records can be quickly visualized, and through the Neotoma API.

In addition to the intellectual merits of the testate amoeba database outlined above, this project had significant broader impacts. Neotoma is essential cyberinfrastructure that supports scientific research, it is publicly available, and it has been widely used as an educational resource, including classes at Lehigh University. The project has supported the training of Lehigh University graduate and undergraduate students working at the intersection of the geosciences and data sciences, a priority area for STEM training.

Last Modified: 01/28/2022
Modified by: Robert K Booth