Publications by Edward Mitchell

Food web structure and energy flux dynamics, but not taxonomic richness, influence microbial ecosystem functions in a Sphagnum-dominated peatland

Alexandre Buttler, Edward Mitchell, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

Soil microbial communities are vital for multiple ecosystem processes and services. In particular, soil microbial food webs are key determinants of soil biodiversity, functioning and stability. Unclear, however, is how struc-tural features of food webs, su ...

ELSEVIER FRANCE-EDITIONS SCIENTIFIQUES MEDICALES ELSEVIER2023

Soil protist function varies with elevation in the Swiss Alps

Nicolas Jean Philippe Guex, Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Aline Buri

Protists are abundant and play key trophic functions in soil. Documenting how their trophic contributions vary across large environmental gradients is essential to understand and predict how biogeochemical cycles will be impacted by global changes. Here, u ...

2022

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

Alexandre Buttler, Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

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. Warming and drought may cause peatlands to become carbon sources through stim ...

PEERJ INC2020

Greater topoclimatic control of above‐ versus below‐ground communities

Nicolas Jean Philippe Guex, Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Marco Pagni, Aline Buri, Loïc Pellissier

2020

Dispersal limitations and historical factors determine the biogeography of specialized terrestrial protists

Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Bertrand Fournier, Luca Bragazza, Mariusz Lamentowicz

Recent studies show that soil eukaryotic diversity is immense and dominated by micro-organisms. However, it is unclear to what extent the processes that shape the distribution of diversity in plants and animals also apply to micro-organisms. Major diversif ...

WILEY2019

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

Alexandre Buttler, Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Luca Bragazza, Pierre Rémi Mariotte, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

2018

Development of a new ecotoxicological assay using the testate amoeba Euglypha rotunda (Rhizaria; Euglyphida) and assessment of the impact of the herbicide S-metolachlor

Edward Mitchell, Benoît Jean Dominique Ferrari

Elsevier2018

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

Alexandre Buttler, Edward Mitchell, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

2018

Soil protistology rebooted: 30 fundamental questions to start with

Enrique Lara, Alexandre Jousset, Edward Mitchell, Thierry Jean Heger, Bertrand Fournier, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Santosh Kumar, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

Protists are the most diverse eukaryotes. These microbes are keystone organisms of soil ecosystems and regulate essential processes of soil fertility such as nutrient cycling and plant growth. Despite this, protists have received little scientific attentio ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2017

Genetic Determinism vs. Phenotypic Plasticity in Protist Morphology

Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

Untangling the relationships between morphology and phylogeny is key to building a reliable taxonomy, but is especially challenging for protists, where the existence of cryptic or pseudocryptic species makes finding relevant discriminant traits difficult. ...

Wiley2017

Significance testing testate amoeba water table reconstructions

Edward Mitchell, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

Transfer functions are valuable tools in palaeoecology, but their output may not always be meaningful. A recently-developed statistical test ('randomTF') offers the potential to distinguish among reconstructions which are more likely to be useful, and thos ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2016

Linking soil microbial communities to vascular plant abundance along a climate gradient

Alexandre Buttler, Edward Mitchell, Luca Bragazza, Richard David Bardgett

The ongoing expansion of shrub cover in response to climate change represents a unique opportunity to explore the link between soil microbial communities and vegetation changes. This link is particularly important in peatlands where shrub expansion is expe ...

Wiley-Blackwell2015

Experimental warming interacts with soil moisture to discriminate plant responses in an ombrotrophic peatland

Alexandre Buttler, Edward Mitchell, Cédric Pochelon, Luca Bragazza, Pierre Rémi Mariotte, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

QuestionA better understanding of the response of Sphagnum mosses and associated vascular plants to climate warming is relevant for predicting the carbon balance of peatlands in a warmer world. Open-top chambers (OTCs) have been used to investigate the eff ...

Wiley-Blackwell2015

An unexpected role for mixotrophs in the response of peatland carbon cycling to climate warming

Alexandre Buttler, Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Bertrand Fournier, Luca Bragazza, Robert Thomas Edmund Mills, Constant Signarbieux, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey, Bjorn Jozef Maria Robroek

Mixotrophic protists are increasingly recognized for their significant contribution to carbon (C) cycling. As phototrophs they contribute to photosynthetic C fixation, whilst as predators of decomposers, they indirectly influence organic matter decompositi ...

Nature Publishing Group2015

Functional traits as a new approach for interpreting testate amoeba palaeo-records in peatlands and assessing the causes and consequences of past changes in species composition

Enrique Lara, Edward Mitchell, Bertrand Fournier, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

Subfossil remains of various groups of organisms preserved in peat and sediment archives are commonly used to infer past environmental changes using transfer functions based on species composition. However, the changes in community structure can also be ex ...

Sage Publications Ltd2015

Morphological, hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological changes and challenges in river restoration – The Thur River case study

Philipp Schneider, Edward Mitchell, David Andrew Barry, Paolo Perona, Juliane Hollender

River restoration can enhance river dynamics, environmental heterogeneity and biodiversity, but the underlying processes governing the dynamic changes need to be understood to ensure that restoration projects meet their goals, and adverse effects are preve ...

European Geosciences Union2014

Seasonal patterns of testate amoeba diversity, community structure and species-environment relationships in four Sphagnum-dominated peatlands along a 1300 m altitudinal gradient in Switzerland

Alexandre Buttler, Edward Mitchell, Luca Bragazza, Mariusz Lamentowicz, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

Altitudinal gradients are useful to study the potential effects of climate change on ecosystems. Historically, studies on elevation gradients have primarily focused on macro-organisms and ecosystem processes, while microorganisms have been mostly ignored d ...

Pergamon-Elsevier Science Ltd2013

Above- and belowground linkages in Sphagnum peatland: climate warming affects plant-microbial interactions

Alexandre Buttler, Edward Mitchell, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

Peatlands contain approximately one third of all soil organic carbon (SOC). Warming can alter above- and belowground linkages that regulate soil organic carbon dynamics and C-balance in peatlands. Here we examine the multiyear impact of in situ experimenta ...

Wiley-Blackwell2013

To What Extent Do Food Preferences Explain the Trophic Position of Heterotrophic and Mixotrophic Microbial Consumers in a Sphagnum Peatland?

Caroline Meyer, Edward Mitchell, Vincent Eric Jules Jassey

Although microorganisms are the primary drivers of biogeochemical cycles, the structure and functioning of microbial food webs are poorly studied. This is the case in Sphagnum peatlands, where microbial communities play a key role in the global carbon cycl ...

Springer US2013

Spatio-temporal heterogeneity of riparian soil morphology in a restored floodplain

Claire Guenat, Edward Mitchell, Bertrand Fournier, Géraldine Michèle Bullinger

Floodplains have been intensively altered in industrialized countries, but are now increasingly being restored. It is therefore important to assess the effect of these restoration projects on the aquatic and terrestrial components of ecosystems. However, d ...

European Geosciences Union2013