Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2004 number 4

Results of longstanding investigations of the species diversity of trematode parasiting at the parthenitae stage on the mollusks of Bithyniidae family of the Chany Lake are discussed. Comparative characterization of infection level of the populations of snails collected from different areas of the Chany Lake and the Kargat river (in the middle and lower river) is presented. High level of mollusk infection by trematode was accounted for, with birds being the final host. One of the 17 trematode species was found in the fauna of West Siberia for the first time, and another in the fauna of Russia. It is shown that the Chany Lake is free from any nidus of opisthorchosis.

Earthworms are biological indicators of the territories polluted with oil and oil products. The goal of the present work was investigation of the regularities in behavioural responses and changes in the Lumbricus rubellus H. earthworm population under the effect of different doses of crude oil under laboratory conditions. The survival of the earthworms is established depending on oil concentration. LD₅₀ calculated analytically is achieved under the conditions of continuous pollution of the soil profile at 29 g of crude oil per 1 kg of substrate.

A comparison of the communities of macro and microbionts of the newly formed ecosystems in the sites of oil production with the natural communities of the middle part of the Siberian Ridges of West Siberian plane is made. The action of oil and accompanying products in the area under investigation does not lead to soil defaunation but only decreases the level of zoological diversity and absolutely changes its structure. The newly formed communities, unlike natural ones, exhibit very mixed and unstable ecological composition of the Arthropoda. At this background, a noticeable place is occupied by the inhabitants of low-lying bogs known as the pioneers of development of the virgin substrates. According to all the indices, all the newly formed communities are closer to each other than to natural forest of bog reference communities.

Ecological and physiological indices of nutrition and growth of caterpillars of the larch race of Siberian moth kept on the needles of various fodder plants are obtained. The needles of Siberian larch turned out to be the most favourable fodder object for the caterpillars, less favourable are the needles of Siberian fir and cedar pine, while Siberian spruce and pine were found to be unfavourable. During the course of development, the caterpillars were characterized by the general trends of changes in the indices of nutrition and growth independently of the species of fodder plants.

The ant clusters were registered along the cut from the submountain forest-steppe through the forest zone and sparse growth of trees to the mountain tundra. On the basis of the results of this work, environmental factors determining the structure of the ant population were revealed; the force and commonness of the connection between non-uniformity of population and environment were estimated.

Optimal conditions for ants in the Edigan basin are peculiar to well-warmed pine and small-leaved forest; suboptimal ones, to meadows, meadow and stony steppes; pessimal conditions, to park larch forests, shrub-grown slopes and real steppes; and extreme ones where ants occur only along road sides, to dark coniferous forests. The heterogeneity of the ant population in the basin is determined by the extent of tree crown shading (depending on forest density and the composition of the forest-forming tree types), by the extent of shrub overgrowth, and in open meadows and steppe habitats by the productivity of phytocenoses (meadows, meadow steppes, real steppes), and by their stoniness. The damage in money terms to the ant population due to the construction of the Katun and Chemal hydroelectric power stations, calculated using the procedure proposed by the present authors, is twice as great as the damage to the vertebrates estimated by other authors, and nearly three times as great as that to the invertebrates determined approximately from the correlation between the existence energy of vertebrates and that of invertebrates as the measure of their ecosystem significance.

The present article describes the results of investigations of Bacillus thurungiensis. They circulate in natural epizootic Lasiomma laricicola Karl. which was discovered in the Kamchatka region. Ten strains of crystal-forming bacteria were isolated and identified. Different subspecies circulate in the population of Lasiomma laricicola Karl.: ssp. thuringiensis, ssp. kurstaki, ssp. alesti, ssp. dendrolimus. The investigated cultures except the strain of ssp. dendrolimus differ by motley antidenic structure. Itraspecific antagonism of strains was discovered.

Ichthyomonitoring is a component of the hydrobiological and hydroecological monitoring and includes both fishery and indication aspects. Theoretical foundations of ichthyomonitoring include the regularities of fish biology, in particular the character of inter-relations of fish with abiotic and biotic components of the components of water ecosystems. Fish is an active element of the latter and plays a substantial role in the formation of biological variety and complicacy of ecosystems, their stability toward the anthropogenic action. The methodic basis of indication ichthyomonitoring is the comparative analysis of the parameters of the biology of fish from the background (reference) water bodies and the reservoirs affected by the human economical activities.

Changes in the species composition and the dynamics of the population of main fish in the Khantay water reservoir are considered. It is shown that fish of prey (pike, burbot, perch) formed the basis of the entire period of the organized fishery. At present, the water reservoir has changed from the white-fish and pike type to the white-fish, perch and carp water reservoir. Within the time of its existence, a substantial decrease in the number of linear mass characteristics, prolificacy of one-age fish and an increase in the time of pubescence are observed. This is to the utmost true for the white-fish (Siberian whitefish, peled, whitefish-pyzhyan) which are represented here exclusively by the indigenous species.

On the basis of long-term investigations, a middle-scale map (1 : 1 000 000) of the bird population was compiled, encompassing not only the Russian but also the Kazakh part of the Altay mountainous region. Illustrating the main regularities and provincial specific features of the spatial differentiation of the bird population during the first half of summer, at the same time the map provides also another kind of information which cannot be depicted visually by other means: the geographical position of bird communities of different taxonomic rank, the general character of their allocation, the area of territory occupied, etc.

The results of route accounts of birds performed at the territory of the Ural mountainous country (from the Sub-Polar to Southern Urals, inclusively) during the first half of summer (16.05-15.07) embracing generally the period from 1948 to 2000 are analyzed. The total length of the routes was about 3500 km. The total number of initial versions of the bird communities is 394. On the basis of the multidimensional factor analysis, a hierarchic classification of ornithocomplexes was composed and the main environmental factors forming the structure of communities were revealed. Comparative analysis showed that the specificity of the space and typological non-uniformity of ornithocomplexes in the Urals is exhibited even at the level of the systems of bird communities and is connected with the natural peculiarity of this physical geographic territory and the features of its development.

The structure of the bird communities of the main types of ecotopes in the Polar Urals is considered on the basis of accounts at four large grounds situated in different regions from the Southern limit to the North. The most similar communities were those of typical mountainous ecotopes: rocky placers and rocky tundras. A trend was observed: the lower one comes from the highlands to river valleys, the more variable the bird communities become. For instance, the community of rocky tundra is the most uniform one along the whole length of the Polar Urals. The basis of this community is formed by the species which are characteristic of this mountainous country: the tundra ptarmigan, khrustan, wheatear, pipit. The structure of the population of grassy and mossy tundras is substantially dependent on surface topography and directly on relief. The bird communities of shrubby tundra, tall bushes and sparse trees are most variable. They are peculiar for each region, in spite of the fact that the shrubby passerine species usual for the subarctic regions are present everywhere.

A classification of the birds of Kemerovo is reported according to the similarity of their biotope distribution during a year, counted for half a month.

The features of waterfowl distribution over the Vakhsh river and the influence of agrotechnical water discharge on them are analyzed. A dependence between the abundance of swimming birds and variations in the water content of the river from one year to another is established.

On the basis of the summer route accounts of birds, carried out since 1959 till 1996, the indices of abundance and population of wood grouse and hazel grouse were calculated for all the areas and subareas of West Siberia. Total wood grouse resource is about 900 thousand individuals, while that of hazel grouse is almost 12 times as large.

On the basis of PCR-RFLP analysis of isolates from the tissues of red field-voles, shrews and field mice caught in May-August 2002 in the outskirts of the Novosibirsk scientific centre, the gene-species composition of Borrelia of the Borrelia burdorferi senso lato complex was revealed. The participation of field mice in the circulation of Borrelia was established. In all the three species, prevailing is Borrelia garinii, represented by two genetic groups: B. garinii NT29 and 20047T. The B. afzelii genospecies is more rarely detected in the tissues of the small animals. Comparison was carried out between the features of the distribution of different genospecies of the pathogen in the reserve hosts with the literature data related to other regions.

The analysis of morphometric variability of Alticola strelzowi from five regions of the Altay mountains by means of one- and multidimensional statistics revealed significant differences between the samples from the following regions: 1) South-Eastern Altay, 2) South-Eastern Altay (Sailyugem ridge), 3) Central Altay. The voles from the Sailyugem belong to A. s. depressus  subspecies, while those from the Central Altay belong to A. s. strelzowi. Samples from the South-Eastern Altay have not been analyzed before; however, on the basis of our data, they cannot be related to any of these subspecies. The analysis of morphotypical variability showed that the voles from the Central Altay have more complicated morphotypes.

On the basis of the analysis of versions of the spatial and ethological structure of rodent populations, determined by the variability of such parameters as the relative exclusiveness of use of space, sex and age structure of the intra-population groupings, degree of dispersity and aggregation of individuals, character of their interactions, a typological classification is proposed, in which 4 main types of the spatial and ethological structure of rodent population are distinguished: I) the system of individual habitats, II) the system of individual and group habitats, III) the system of individual and family-group habitats, and IV) the system of family-group territories. The characteristics of the indicated types are presented; similarity and differences between them are discussed.