Planhoogenraadia liboica sp. nov. a new testate amoebae species from mountain forest soils in China

Testate, or shell, amoebae inhabit almost all types of biotopes and have a global distribution. They are a key component of soil ecosystems and are actively involved in the biogenic cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus, silica and calcium. They play an important role in regulating the abundance of microorganisms in soils. Since late 19th century, a development of the micropaleontological method in paleoecology was known as a rhizopod analysis (Beyens and Bobrov, 2016). The shell amoebae from the genus Planhoogenraadia in the eastern part of Eurasia, namely in the Far East, were first found in 2001 (Bobrov, 2001). Later they were also found in Thailand (Todorov and Golemansky, 2014). The genus Planhoogenraadia inhabits the forest soils. The genus belongs to the Gondwana-tropic group of shell amoebae and has a limited geographical distribution (Bonnet, 1984; Bonnet and Gomez-Sanchez, 1984). This is one of the most interesting genera in protozoology in view of biogeography (Foissner, 2006; Smith et al., 2018). The soil fauna of shell amoebas of the subtropics and tropics is still poorly studied (Qin et al., 2011; Bobrov et al., 2015). This study was conducted in a mountain subtropical forest near the city of Wuhan, Hubei Province, Central China.