West Siberian Forest-Steppe as an Agglomeration of Biodiversity, Universal Biom and Reserve of Forthcoming Biogeographical Rearrangements
V. G. Mordkovich
Siberian Zoological Museum; Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals SB RAS
mu4@eco.nsc.ru
Keywords: forest-steppe, biodiversity, community, landscape ecology, population structure
Pages: 27-34
Abstract
Forest-steppe is usually characterized as a mosaic marginal complex of biota at the junction of forest and steppe. Meanwhile, in the gradient of ecological conditions from the equator to the North Pole, the forest-steppe latitudes represent a band of ecological comfort for the biota. As a result, the maximum of the species diversity occurs here in the sequence of latitudinаl zones. It is demonstrated that the fraction of insects in forest-steppe does not exceed 30 % as a total. The overwhelming majority of forest-steppe inhabitants are psychromesophiles with stress-tolerant vital strategy, able to penetrate the forest and steppe zones from the forest-steppe along the biotopes of transient positions.
Modern forest-steppe can be considered not as a faceless mix but a self-consistent biome that has, due to its universal properties, the decisive importance in maintaining the zonаl order at the West Siberian Plain.
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