Home – Home – Jornals – Contemporary Problems of Ecology 2002 number 4

In the course of long-term studies, the species composition of birds inhabiting artificial nesting places in forest ecosystems in the south of the Sverdlovsk Region, the dependence of population density and structure of hollow-nesting birds on the biotope character and on the level of environment pollution by industrial discharges have been investigated. In artificial nesting places, reproduction of 15 bird species has been observed. The most frequently occurring are pied flycatcher, great tit, coal tit, common redstart, starling and tree sparrow. A dependence of hollow-nesting birds population on natural climatic conditions has been demonstrated. Transition from dark-coniferous mountainous forests of the Middle Ural to northern forest-steppe forests of the Transuralian region is accompanied by an increase of population abundance and a change of the speciers composition  and structure of the bird community. Pollution of forest ecosystems by the discharges of the copper-smelting plant leads to a decrease of the total hollow-nesting bird population density and stability, and a considerable change of the community structure.  In degraded biotopes, the population density of pied flycatcher and to a smaller degree, that of coal tit  decreases, and that of common redstart, on the contrary, increases.