Anatoly Bobrov
Author of the Testate Amoeba World Database
Anatoly Bobrov is an honored professor at Moscow State University. His lecture courses are Biogeography, Social Ecology, Methods of Biological Indication and Diagnosis of Soils and How to Write Articles for High-Review Journals, a special course for postgraduate students. He has about 50 years of experience in studying testate amoebae and over the years he has compiled a large database of all the testate amoebae he has found in locations around the world (see World Map below). When he retired, he decided to make his database accessible to everyone interested in the fascinating world of testate amoebae.
Testate Amoeba World Database
The development of the database began in the last century, in 1977, when Anatoly was a third-year student in the laboratory of biological diagnostics of the Soil Science Faculty of Moscow State University. There were two aspects that were decisive for the creation of this world database: 1) the aesthetic perfection of the shapes and structure of the shells, and 2) the mechanism of the construction of these shells, which is not fully understood to this day. During lectures, Anatoly asked students: “Do you see the shells of amoebas, their aesthetic perfection? Amoebas have no arms, no head, and you have all this. Can you build such houses for yourself and extract the material for construction and soil solutions?” The answer was always the same: “No, of course not!”
Anatoly Bobrov personally selected all the samples of his Testate Amoeba World Database. The samples were selected from the most characteristic places of natural ecosystems of many different countries – litter and top centimeters of soils of forest ecosystems of different countries, top centimeters of various types of meadow and marsh habitats. Funding for the expeditions was provided by Moscow University, scientific grants from Russia and support from universities in several countries.
Testate Amoebae in Sphagnum Database
For the first time in world protozoology and ecology, a study was conducted on the composition of communities of testate amoebae, inhabiting different types of Sphagnum in the most widespread bogs of Russia and the world. The database contains the results of analysis by light and electron microscopy of 95 samples from surface peat, organogenic, organomineral and mineral samples from the horizons of soil profiles of podzolic and sod-podzolic soils of the East European Plain (Moscow, Tver regions). The number of testate amoebae in the samples varied from 233 to 1315 and was determined by the population density of this group of free-living protozoa, whose shells are well preserved after the death of the protozoa themselves. This determines the importance of testate amoebae in ecological and, especially, paleoecological studies of modern ecosystems and also paleo-communities of the Holocene and Pleistocene, that is, the last 120 thousand years.
A total of 101 taxa of species and infra-species levels were found, belonging to 22 genera of testate amoebae.
The number of species in the samples varied from 2 to 35 taxa. The highest species richness is characteristic of samples with the onset of humidification of plant litter, as well as for peat horizons with higher humidity values. The most widely and fully represented species are the genera Centropyxis, Cyclopyxis, Plagiopyxis, Heleopera, Nebela, Difflugia, Euglypha.
The obtained data determine the importance of their analysis, which will form the basis for writing a general article on rhizopod analysis in the ecology and paleoecology of bog ecosystems.
Additional information about the author of the world database:
Total: 160 articles, 15 abstracts, 7 books, 15 research projects, 2 dissertation supervisions, 8 diploma theses, 18 courses, 24 course teaching, 38 conference presentations, 2 media appearances, 1 patent, 1 software rights registration certificate, 5 research reports, 4 program committee memberships, 1 dissertation council membership, 6 dissertation evaluations. One book of prose “After Midnight”, one book of poetry “September is Running Out”.
Number of citations of articles in journals according to Web of Science: 1377, Scopus: 2024.
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