Employees of the IEE RAS and the HSE International Laboratory of Landscape Ecology took part in field studies of forest geosystems in Northwestern Mongolia/

From July 10 to August 9, 2022, an expedition to Altai was conducted, its route passing through many regions of Central Russia, Tatarstan, Bashkortostan, and Kazakhstan.

On behalf of all employees of the Institute, we congratulate Viktor Nikolayevich Orlov, a world-famous zoologist, Doctor of Biological Sciences, professor, laureate of the State Prize...

The staff of the Institute sincerely congratulate Yuri Stepanovich Reshetnikov, ichthyologist, doctor of biological sciences, professor, on his 85th birthday.

A.N.Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS and the Arctic Research Center signed an agreement to carry out research work aimed at developing a program for monitoring and preserving biological diversity.

Climatic anomalies affect the carbon balance of forests, as well as their ability to absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide, state the scientists of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS.

A tripartite agreement on the joint conservation of the Far Eastern leopard was concluded by the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS, FGBU "Land of the Leopard" and ANO "Far Eastern Leopards"

The study of the sleep-wake cycle of the mouse-deer showed that the parameters of sleep in these animals are unique and formed under the influence of a number of ecological factors of the rainforest.

On August 21, the summer field school of the Institute of Biological Problems of the Permafrost of the Federal Research Center "Yakutsk Scientific Center of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences" completed its work.

Members of the expedition "Arctic Floating University - 2022" carried out a set of research works on the Franz Josef Land archipelago, including continued observations of Atlantic walruses.

Russian scientists from the IBIW, IEE RAS and CSU discovered that one of the species of tropical fish, which previously ate only plant foods, at some point split into herbivores and predators.

Researchers revealed the influence of the parasitic flatworm Strigea robusta on the normal development of toad tadpoles.

Ornithologists in Taimyr have tagged and ringed 21 birds for further study.

A recently released special issue of Cat News No. 15, 2022 was dedicated to the problem of preserving the Persian leopard in the world.

The form of the gallop that the animal uses determines the range of motion at the lumbosacral joint.

A team of biologists from the IEE RAS and the Faculty of Biology of Moscow State University studied the common tropical nudibranch mollusc Coryphellina rubrolineata. Molecular genetic analyzes, as well as a study of the external and internal structure of animals, showed that this is not one species, but at least five. As a result, the authors described four new species of nudibranch mollusks that differ in mitochondrial and nuclear genes, as well as body stripes. The study was supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation (RSF), the results were published in the journal Diversity. Molecular genetic methods have allowed scientists to better identify cryptic (similar in appearance, but genetically different) and pseudocryptic (different in appearance, but this becomes clear only after applying genetic methods) species and species complexes. With their spread in taxonomy, the hypothesis of the leading role of geographical barriers and spatial isolation in speciation began to dominate. Often, remote populations of the same species with a wide range began to be divided into several species, based solely on genetic comparison data, which is not always justified. Recent studies in the field of evolution and phylogeny emphasize the great role of the ecological factor in speciation: organisms can diverge into different ecological niches within the same geographical area, acquiring new characters and isolating according to their "way of life."

Existing methods of combating pathogenic species of Fusarium fungi are not effective enough due to the high variability and specificity of the biology of these phytopathogenic microorganisms. The aim of our work was to reconstruct the kinetic mechanisms that determine the biomass of Fusarium species in the agroecosystem to minimize the risk of the spread of Fusarium. Using dynamic modeling, a system consisting of three components was studied: soil fungieating nematodes, Fusarium fungi and winter wheat seedlings. Based on the results of the parameter estimation and global sensitivity analysis, scientists identified three model parameters that have the strongest impact on the biomass of Fusarium species: (1) the rate of reproduction of mushroom-eating nematodes due to feeding on Fusarium fungi, (2) the rate of natural death of fungi-eating nematodes, and (3) tank size media for Fusarium fungi. According to the results of stochastic modeling, the internal variability of the dynamics of the biomass of Fusarium species was two orders of magnitude higher than the internal variability of the dynamics of the abundance of fungi-eating nematodes. The developed model made it possible to obtain fundamentally new information about the main mechanisms of interaction between Fusarium species, fungi-eating nematodes, and winter wheat plants, as well as to identify the most promising mechanisms that can reduce the biomass of Fusarium species in the soil.

On June 2, 2022, a meeting of the section of experts on the Persian leopard was held at the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia. The issue of releasing young leopards that were born in the Sochi "Leopard Recovery Center in the Caucasus" in 2020, which is fundamentally important for the restoration of this species in the Caucasus, was discussed. In the Central Caucasus, in the Republic of North Ossetia-Alania and the adjacent territories of Kabardino-Balkaria, through the efforts of the participants in the Program for the restoration of the Caucasian leopard in the Caucasus, a small, but stable group of this rare species has already been created, which is beginning to attract leopards from neighboring regions of Transcaucasia. In places where leopards were released on camera traps, not only released, but also wild leopards began to be recorded. An increase in this group due to the release of two-year-old leopards Leo, Khosta and Laura into these places in 2022, whose readiness for life in nature was confirmed by a group of experts from the IEE RAS, IEGT RAS, the Moscow Zoo and WWF-Russia, would increase the viability of the created group of leopards. Despite the problems with the delivery of Canadian satellite collars to Russia, the IEE RAS staff prepared domestic transmitters for leopards, which have proven themselves well when working with other species of predatory mammals. They are not inferior to Canadian ones in their characteristics and do not interfere with animals’ hunting.