Although the use of sub-fossil testate amoebae as a proxy for raised bog hydrology in Holocene paleoecological studies is well-established, some detailed aspects of species-environment relationships remain under-researched. One such issue is the effect of bog surface microtopography on the climatic sensitivity of testate amoeba communities. Although it has been suggested that some microforms—especially hummocks—may be less sensitive to climatic forcing than others, this has rarely been objectively tested. To investigate this, subfossil testate amoebae assemblages have been examined in a series of shallow cores collected along a hummock-lawn-hollow transect from a bog in central Ireland and the resulting reconstructed water table records, dated using ²¹⁰Pb, have been compared with instrumental weather data. Testate amoebae communities in the hollow microform were found to be significantly less diverse than those in the hummock and lawn, and both the hummock and lawn showed statistically significant correlations with instrumental temperature and precipitation data. Therefore, whilst the suggestion that paleoecological investigations should target intermediate bog microforms remains sound, the notion that hummock-based testate amoebae hydrological data are climatically-insensitive is challenged.

尽管在全新世古生态学研究中已将亚化石遗体变形虫用作升高的沼泽水文学的替代品，但物种-环境关系的某些详细方面仍处于研究不足中。一个这样的问题是沼泽表面微形貌对睾丸变形虫群落气候敏感性的影响。尽管有人建议说某些微缩模型，尤其是山雀，可能比其他微缩模型对气候强迫更不敏感，但这很少经过客观测试。为了研究这一点，研究人员对沿爱尔兰中部沼泽的山岗-草坪-空心样地收集的一系列浅层岩心中的亚化石睾丸变形虫群进行了检查，并得出了重建的地下水位记录（使用²¹⁰铅已与仪器气象数据进行了比较。发现中空微形中的遗嘱性变形虫群落的多样性远不及山岗和草坪中的那些，而山岗和草坪都与仪器温度和降水数据显示出统计学上的显着相关性。因此，尽管关于古生态学研究应该针对中等沼泽微形体的建议仍然存在，但对基于吊床的睾丸变形虫水文数据对气候不敏感的观点仍受到质疑。