Checklist of Sphagnum-dwelling testate amoebae in Bulgaria

Until now, a complete checklist of Sphagnum-dwelling testate amoebae in Bulgaria has never been published. Records for species diversity and distribution in the country were scattered in many faunistic and ecological publications. The aim of the present study is to summarise all data for the species distribution at the level of country by reviewing the existing literature and by additional data obtained in our research over the past two years.

The checklist comprises 171 species, classified into 43 genera, 20 families, three orders, three classes and three phyla. We present data for 16 new Sphagnum-dwelling testate amoebae in Bulgaria and new distribution data for 134 species. Of them, 99 species are recorded from Stara Planina Mt., for which there was no available data to date. Additionally are recorded 69 new species for Pirin Mt., 21 for Vitosha Mt. and 18 for Rila Mt. Thirty six species are synonymised according to the latest taxonomic changes. Two misidentified taxa (Euglypha brachiata Penard, 1902 and Difflugia compressa var. africana Gauthier-Lièvre et Thomas, 1958) are transferred into valid species E. acanthophora and Zivkovicia compressa, respectively. Three of the recorded species have not been included in the checklist, because they are currently not refering to testate amoebae (Cochliopodium bilimbosum (Auerbach 1856) and Cochliopodium echinatum Korotneef, 1879 are gymnamoebae (naked amoebae) and Microgromia elegantula (Penard 1904) = Paralieberkuehnia elegantula (Penard 1904) is freshwater foraminifera).