Bird Population in the Forests of the Southern Urals under the Conditions of Industrial Pollution. Communication 1. Reactions of Species and the Community
E. A. BELSKII, E. A. BELSKAYA
Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology UrB RAS, 620144, Yekaterinburg, 8 Marta str., 202
belskii@ipae.uran.ru
Keywords: bird population, industrial pollution, the Southern Urals
Abstract
Changes in the summer bird population of birch forests in the gradient of pollution with the emissions from the Karabash copper smelter (Chelyabinsk Region) were studied in 2009 by means of point counts. With increasing pollution, total density, species richness and diversity of bird population decrease, the fraction of hole-nesters in the community decreases, while the fraction of species nesting on ground and in the upper layer of forest increases. Changes in the majority of characteristics of bird population are limited to a local territory (at a distance of 6–8 km from the plant).
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