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Testate amoebae play an important role at the very first beginning of succession on land. We used these protists to analyze initial colonization processes occurring in an artificial water catchment built as a terrestrial hillside and located in a reclaimed lignite mining area in Lower Lusatia (Germany). In the first two years after site construction, only few testate amoebae species and individuals had been found on the predominantly uncovered, sandy study site. However, the substrate removed from small vegetation patches (containing organic matter) revealed tenfold higher amoebal densities compared to uncovered, sandy sites which were only a few cm apart. A cluster analysis separated these colonization patterns into covered and uncovered micro-sites. However, larger-scaled, consistent processes dependent on environmental parameters or gradients were not visible, as demonstrated by redundancy analysis. To conclude, the immigration and colonization process of testate amoebae on newly exposed soil surfaces is highly dependent on Substrate quality, also assigned to specific site structures characterized by small vegetation patches.