The IEE RAS staff analyzed the history of the emergence of diversity of cereal flies of the genus Meromyza in the Northern Hemisphere in the Neogene period. In the BEAST program, a chronogram was constructed based on a section of the mtDNA gene CO1 (770 bp) of 29 dominant species of cereal flies. Based on molecular data and the morphology of the male reproductive system, 5 clusters were identified, and the time of their formation and spread was determined. It has been shown that the decrease in average annual temperatures in the Neogene period correlates with the increase in species diversity of grass flies. The time of formation of the common hypothetical ancestor of Meromyza flies is 13.9 million years ago. A significant cooling in Eurasia at the beginning of the Miocene led to the emergence of the first ancestral individual of the genus. A slight decrease in temperature until the end of the Miocene and in the Pliocene led to the emergence of several ancestral lines of speciation, which gave rise to groups of species. A sharp change in temperature in the Quaternary period led to a burst of speciation from 2.5 million years ago to 400 thousand years ago. The early emergence of European species forming the "variegata" species group, and then species included in the "nigriventris" and "zachvatkini" groups, confirms the origin of the first speciation center of grass flies of the genus Meromyza in Europe. At this time, the ancestral individuals of three Holarctic species of this genus arose. The tendency for new species to spread towards Asia can be traced along the range of species in the nigriventris and zachvatkini species groups. About 5 million years ago, cooling began again. The aridization of the climate during the spread of Holarctic species to the east allowed the formation of a new center of speciation — the Asian forest-steppes. The passage of species through the Bering Isthmus led to the emergence of another center of origin — North America. The exchange of regional species of cereal flies later than 5 million years ago was impossible due to the disappearance of the Bering Isthmus. The correspondence of the sexual structures of the male and female of the same species largely determines the protection of the species genome from the penetration of foreign genes at the initial stage of mating. The correspondence of the sexual structures of the male and female grain flies occurs due to changes in the shape and size of special elements of the male sexual structures. Species of the "variegata" cluster have sexual structures of medium size, in the Eurasian species they are smaller, and species from the "salatrix" and "pratorum" groups, common in Asia, have larger forms. The modern distribution of grain flies is determined by their ecological preferences - they are found on forest edges, meadows and roadsides. This confirms the hypothesis that the ancestors of Meromyza flies arose in sparse forests and grassy refugia of forest-steppes. The diversity of grain flies in the centers of speciation is associated with the adaptation of the species to a new host plant. Speciation within a group of species correlates with polyphagy and development on cereals from different subtribes of cereal fly species close to the ancestor, and increased food specialization in the process of formation of other species. The work was published in the journal Biology Bulletin: The Evolution of Holarctic Grass Flies of the Genus Meromyza Mg. (Diptera, Chloropidae) in the Neogene. Safonkin A. F., Triseleva T. A., Yatsuk A. A. Biology Bulletin, 2024, No. 6

Fig.1: Distribution of species of the genus Typhlomys Blind tree mice (genus Typhlomys) are an ancient, relict, very exotic and even mysterious group of rodents that live in the mountains of East Asia. The taxonomic position and even the name of these animals was uncertain for a long time. They were called tree mice, and oriental dormice, and Chinese soft-furred hamsters. Fig.2: Typhlomys taxuansis – a new rodent species for science from northwestern Vietnam These animals are remarkable in many ways. In addition to the fact that despite their arboreal lifestyle, they are completely blind and navigate in space using echolocation like bats, and also in the fact that almost all known species of the genus are very ancient (Oligocene) narrow-range endemics with a sharply fragmented range. They live on mountain tops in extremely specific habitats with high humidity, in the so-called foggy forests. Just a decade ago, the genus Typhlomys was considered monotypic, that is, containing a single species. However, in recent years, Russian and Chinese researchers, based on comparative molecular genetic and morphological studies, have identified five modern peripatric species and one fossil species, as well as a number of species-level genetic lines that have not yet been formally described. Another new species to science, the sixth in a row, was recently discovered by Russian and Vietnamese researchers working at the Joint Russian-Vietnamese Tropical Center in northwestern Vietnam. Fig.3: Skull of Typhlomys taxuansis. The holotype of the new species is in the collections of the Zoological Museum of Moscow State University. An article containing the first description of a new rodent species, as well as summarizing the distribution and conservation status of all currently known species of the genus Typhlomys, was recently published in the Biodiversity Data Journal. Balakirev A, Bui X.P., Rozhnov V (2024) Typhlomys taxuansis (Rodentia, Platacanthomyidae): new species of the genus from northern Vietnam with notes on conservation status and distribution. Biodiversity Data Journal 12: e133363.

Fig.1: 1 - Republic of Kalmykia, 2 - Astrakhan Region, 3 - Caspian Sea, A - West, B - Northeast, C - West 2008, D - East. Many animals do not sit still: they settle, migrate, develop new spaces, expand their ranges. Who are they? Where are they from and where are they going? How do colonist populations differ from maternal populations? What microevolutionary processes accompany the colonization process? Now in Kalmykia, the gerbil is returning to its homeland. The animals are returning to the places from which 10 years ago they were displaced by the spreading steppe - tall grass is not for desert inhabitants. Now the desert is returning again, and gerbils are following it. Using the analysis of molecular genetic markers, we want to understand where they come from and where they go, whether they differ in genetic marks from those that remain in place, how diverse is the genetic composition of the colonists? In a paper published in Animals, sequences of the control region and cytochrome b gene were used to compare the genetic makeup of new colonies (West) of the midday gerbil with that of the possible founders (East and Northeast). It was possible to show that in new colonies, genetic diversity decreases, but the proportion of rare alleles increases. Another important feature of new colonies is their high spatial structure – individual colonies here differ from each other much more than in the founder populations. These results provide empirical support for the concept of "allelic surfing". This work is one of the few in the world that describes the processes of genetic changes in colonists in real time. The work was carried out within the framework of the RSF project 22-14-00223. More about the project. The work was published in the journal Animals: Does the Colonizing Population Exhibit a Reduced Genetic Diversity and Allele Surfing? A Case Study of the Midday Gerbil (Meriones meridianus Pallas) Expanding Its Range. ) Expanding Its Range. // Animals.- 2024.- Т.14. - 2720. Batova, O.N., Markov, N.I., Titov, S.V., Tchabovsky.

Pavel Viktorovich spoke about marine litter. According to researchers, almost 50% is containers and packaging made of various types of plastic, fishing gear, textiles and other materials. It is dangerous for animals - marine mammals get entangled in the remains of fishing nets, cannot remove them on their own and perish. There are volunteers all over the world who are trying to help. In Russia, there are Friends of the Ocean. They come to the haulouts of sea lions, track the collared animals caught in garbage and free them. Discussion was held on microplastics, the Pacific Garbage Patch, and the fact that garbage can be found not only on the surface of the water, but also on the bottom. Projects on collecting garbage in rivers, seas, and oceans were discussed, and what everyone can do to reduce the accumulation of garbage, including plastic.

Chukmasov Pavel Viktorovich, junior research fellow at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, immersed the children in the world of marine mammals. The lecture began with a fascinating introduction to the evolutionary stages that led to the emergence of these amazing creatures - cetaceans and seals. It turns out that even-toed ungulates are relatives of whales and form the order Ceto-ungulates, seals have a common ancestor with mustelids, and elephants are relatives of sea cows. Pavel Viktorovich spoke in detail about the various groups of marine mammals, focusing on their adaptations to life in water. The students learned with great interest about some of the physiological features that allow marine mammals to exist in aquatic environments. At the end, everyone was happy to look at the whales' baffles and teeth and took a photo as a souvenir.

On September 20, the IEE RAS held a seminar-meeting "Using camera traps to monitor biota in specially protected natural areas". Organizers: A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences and ANO "Far Eastern Leopards". The seminar was attended by 45 people, including heads and specialists of 17 Federal State Budgetary Institutions managing protected areas, as well as the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation, IEE RAS, A.K. Tembotov Institute of Mountain Ecology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal State Budgetary Institution "All-Russian Research Institute of Ecology", Roszapovedcentre, ANO "Far Eastern Leopards", ANO "Society for the Conservation of Wildlife", International Public Organization "Expert Council on Nature Conservation", Cherepovets State University, Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia, PJSC "Sberbank of Russia", and the "Sorokoput" Company. The seminar program is available for download. If Youtube is not available in your area, you can watch the recording on the website.

As part of the Teachers' Club, which is taking place in the Darwin Museum, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Scientific Secretary of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences Natalia Yuryevna Feoktistova gave a lecture on the Red Books. Natalya Yuryevna told Moscow biology teachers about how and when the Red Books began to be published and what species they talked about, what a black book is and what species were included in it. The listeners also learned about the problems of regional Red Books and specifically about the Red Book of the city of Moscow, what species were in the latest edition of this book and why, as well as about the prospects for studying these species. All interested teachers can join the Darwin Museum Teachers' Club. Classes are held once a month. Over a cup of tea, you can ask questions of interest to museum staff and share experiences with colleagues. Participation in the event is free. All details are available at the link.

The recent issue of Biology Bulletin (2024, Vol. 51, No. 5) published an article entitled “Automated Identification and Counting of Saigas (Saiga tatarica) by Using Deep Convolutional Neural Networks in High-Resolution Satellite Images” which presents the results of work on recognizing saigas in images of the Earth from space using artificial intelligence. For this work, the entire data set (high-detail images) for the North-West Caspian region, stored at the IEE RAS throughout all the years of work on this topic, was used. High-resolution images (0.5 m per pixel) of past years were accumulated for the period from 2012 to 2022, they captured the same territory in the same season of the year, namely the protected areas of the North-West Caspian region. The Institute has been successfully cooperating with the Stepnoy Nature Reserve in the Astrakhan Region for many years. Joint activities of specialists allow for prompt and accurate implementation of work on verification of data found in space images - on the ground, in the steppe. Thus, employees of the Reserve can at any time confirm or refute the assumptions of the decoders of space images at the Institute on their territory. So the data obtained during the analysis of these images in previous years are highly reliable. Previously, specialists of the Institute developed a method for counting saigas from space - in 2015 it was published in the article "On the Possibility to Identify the Saiga Antelope (Saiga tatarica) on Veryhigh Resolution Satellite Images". Space images have been actively used to assess the state of animal habitats for the last 18-20 years, which is in some way related to the assessment of the number of endangered species (however, this is an indirect connection). The first works with space images with a resolution that allows one to distinguish the animal itself on it (no coarser than 0.5-1 m per pixel) were published in 2014-2015 (respectively, the time of the appearance of satellites with the appropriate equipment and the possibility of purchasing such images for a wide contingent of users). Such works are most optimal for animals of open spaces that are large in size: elephants in the savannah, elephant seals and walruses in open haulouts, polar bears in the Arctic ice desert. The first work by employees of the IEE RAS on research devoted to distinguishing saigas on space images was also published in 2015, which has already been mentioned, and they began to develop this direction in 2012. “At that time, it was not easy, since saigas are graceful antelopes, and much smaller than elephants or walruses in size. Since the ideas of using Artificial Intelligence are currently being intensively developed, the previously developed method also experienced an urgent need to attract modern capabilities; after all, the areas in which saigas need to be detected and counted are huge. In 2023, we began work on selecting neural network algorithms appropriate for the tasks and training them on the existing data pool - that is, on space images that we had previously used to count saigas in the steppe manually, which required certain skills and a lot of time,” says Anna Yachmennikova, PhD in Biology, Senior Researcher at the IEE RAS. Scientists from the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences work together with programmers and engineers from Es-Paz, with whom they also actively collaborate on issues of satellite telemetry and tracking animals using transmitters. The "Saiga Search Network" was developed thanks to the collaboration of specialists from different fields. The published article, the Russian title of which is translated as "Automated detection and counting of saigas (Saiga tatarica) on super-detailed satellite images using deep convolutional neural networks", describes in detail the methodology of work on writing an algorithm by programmers and verification of data and results at all stages of work by zoologists. Automated counting of animals was done in two stages. At both stages, artificial intelligence technologies were used - deep convolutional neural networks (DCNN), but of different architectures, were used for efficient image processing: the work of one network was aimed at identifying clusters of animals, and the other - at detecting each saiga individually. The neural network that detects clusters was developed based on the standard ResNet-50 architecture, designed to solve image classification problems, and then, using a neural network based on another YOLOv7 architecture (one of the most modern), the problems of detecting objects were solved, and so the second network was developed. This is our first experience of using AI to count animals in space images. Basically, all such work comes down to working with aerial photography, but this is a completely different level. Previously, saigas were counted using automobiles or aircrafts - small aircrafts. Such counting now has an extremely negative impact on saigas: cars disturb the cover of vulnerable steppe ecosystems of the North-West Caspian region, and aircrafts cause panic flight among the saigas themselves (they may even die from exhaustion). In addition, such methods of counting are not able to cover large areas at one time. Artificial intelligence allows this meticulous and voluminous work to be done much faster, and the results can be used not only for statistics, but also for making operational decisions (if such a need arises). Images with a resolution of half a meter per pixel are used in this process. Throughout our history, we have worked with satellite systems of Israel, France, and China. Since 2012, IEE RAS has been making an annual request for satellite monitoring of the state of the saiga population in the Northwestern Caspian region. Unfortunately, the request for funding and purchasing satellite images was not supported every year, and images of such high resolution are expensive. If scientists have confirmation of funding for this work, they contact the company purchasing space images in advance and place a special order through it for the company that owns the satellite of interest to scientists. Guided by the terms of the special order, the satellite, at a predetermined time of the year, under cloudless weather, captures the area of ​​interest to the researchers until it receives images that meet the requirements, or until the period of the year during which it is important to conduct such capture ends. The period in which the steppe is photographed corresponds to the saiga rutting season - November-December: this is the time when the males herd the females into harems and the animals stay in large, sedentary groups, and it is relatively easy to count them from above. The saiga is a species that is prone to sharp population jumps if the combination of factors influencing it is favorable. However, one should not delude oneself with this, if the conditions are unfavorable, saigas quickly and easily die out en masse, in huge numbers. It is necessary to carefully monitor populations and keep these biological characteristics in mind, making timely and competent decisions on working with this species. Earlier, employees of the IEE RAS conducted work on modeling the fate of this population in the event of a confluence of certain natural circumstances. Under exceptionally favorable conditions for the saiga, growth is described in accordance with the exponent. That is, in the initial period there is a very slow increase in the population, and after the inflection point - very fast and intensive. However, according to the model's forecasts, by 2015 there should have been at least 50,000 animals in the North-West Caspian region. So the fact that in 2022 there were about 25 thousand of them suggests that the negative factors that affected the saiga at the beginning of the reference point (from the moment the population entered a state of extremely low numbers) were very powerful and practically stopped the natural processes of restoration of this population. It is very important that this work be continued, because natural processes are continuous. Monitoring of the population must be constant, otherwise fundamentally important events in the fate of the species can be missed. The more scientists know, the better they can confirm the existing situation with objective data obtained from reality - the less risk there is of making wrong decisions that can lead to the loss of this unique relict species in the territory of the North-West Caspian region in Russia. The work was published in the journal Biology Bulletin, volume 51, pages 1407–1421, (2024), V. V. Rozhnov, A. L. Salman, A. A. Yachmennikova, A. A. Lushchekina & P. A. Salman. АвPhoto by: Andrey Giljov  Related materials: All news from Astrakhan: "Russian scientists use new digital technologies in the Stepnoy nature reserve" Nature Management and Environmental Protection Service of the Astrakhan Region: "Artificial intelligence helps in counting Astrakhan saigas"

The Russian Academy of Sciences, with the assistance of the State Research Center of the Russian Federation “All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography” (VNIRO), held a symposium “Current Problems of Biogeography of the Russian Far East”. The symposium is dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the 150th anniversary of Academician V.L. Komarov (1869-1945). The chairman of the symposium is Doctor of Biological Sciences, Academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, President of the Theriological Society Vyacheslav Rozhnov. Speakers from IEE RAS include: Anna Yachmennikova, PhD, Senior Researcher, Matvey Mamaev, Leading Engineer, Evgeny Yesin, PhD, Leading Researcher. Related materials: BezFormata: "Conservation of bioresources of the Amur basin discussed by environmentalists" Tikhookeanskaya Zvezda: "Conservation of bioresources of the Amur basin discussed by environmentalists" Rusky losos: "Kamchatka and the Far East: discussing biodiversity and protection of rare fish species"

Scientists from the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences have begun studying the wolves of the Magadan Region. A wolf specialist, senior research fellow at the Institute, Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco, with the help of Igor Dontsov, a deputy of the Magadan Regional Duma, put GPS collars on wolves and representatives of various species of ungulates. In Magadan, he also gave his recommendations to reindeer herders who complain of predator attacks. Wolves, says Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco, are very complex animals, and the solution to problems associated with them demands a scientific approach. The scientist gave a large exclusive interview to Magadan's Vesti. Lyudmila Shcherbakova, journalist: Jose, hello. Let's start with your report at the scientific forum in Magadan. Spatial ecology of reindeer, elk, snow sheep and wolf. What is it about? Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco, Senior Researcher, A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences: This is mainly within the framework of our research in Russia, in different natural habitats, in different biotopes. The question arose about the fact that we know how the social structure of the wolf is organized, we know how the nature of space use is organized, that this is a spatial ecology, but we know this very well for forest habitats, for the plain, for the European part. When we began working in the North-West Caspian region, in the steppe, we observed a very interesting variation of this picture. It had a kind of explanation, as an adaptation to life in open spaces, where there is only one main species, in this case, the saiga. True, what is, as they say, what came first, the chicken or the egg, what is the egg or the chicken in this case, this social structure of the wolf, the picture that we see in the steppes, or the picture that we see in the forest, is still an open question. But you immediately had a question about how all this happens in northern habitats, for example, the Kolyma Highlands, where we have mountain forest-tundra, and there are completely different conditions. Firstly, these are huge expanses, these are very difficult conditions that require adaptation to low temperatures, to the aggregation of potential prey species, respectively, these potential prey are very difficult to access, because getting, for example, a snow sheep there is a serious task for a wolf. Huge potential prey, for example, such as elk, but elk in the European part and Kolyma elk are completely different animals, yes, that is, it is practically not an easy task. And this is, in fact, the first results that we received. It is clear that the research conditions are much more difficult here. If, for example, in the Kaluga region we can move from the swamp on ATVs, we have easy access to almost all places, comfortable winter temperatures. Of course, it sometimes drops to minus 35, but this is rare. As a rule, it stays within 20 degrees below zero. There we have a large network of camera traps, we use different methods. And it is not easy to repeat this research scheme here, but we have an opportunity and interested people, in the form of Igor Borisovich Dontsov, many thanks to him for understanding that it is possible, in fact, to do a very good study, firstly, it is good for the region, because they will study their native region, secondly, this is high-quality work, I would say, at the level of all the best world studies, but on the territory of Russia. Therefore, for this we need to install collars, since we compare the interaction between different packs, between different families, and wolves live in families, so we need to hang satellite GPS collars on individuals of different families and on several individuals of potential prey of these wolves to see how they use the space, how they move. There is often a mistaken opinion that they migrate - they do not, almost all of them live quite sedentary in their habitats. And so they interact with each other. It should be said that in our works we have destroyed one of such widespread myths that there is a certain resource, for example, a victim, and a wolf is a predator, if the resource moves, the wolf goes after it. In fact, all this is very simple, wolves are packed into space, into families, just like people in apartments, each with their own plot, or there, for example, at the dacha. But if we can go to visit a neighbor, and most likely, if we behave politely, he will not drive us away, for a wolf to come to someone else's plot is quite life-threatening. A predator always avoids conflict. All this demonstration of aggression is nothing more than a demonstration, it is just waving fists. Because if a predator gets injured, it won't be able to hunt. That's why the mechanisms of preserving the territory, marking the territory, designating itself, hence the howl, are constantly working towards this same goal. Howling is consolidation of the group, it's the same as when we sing at feasts and show that we are friends, that we communicate well with each other, that we are comfortable. The wolf is the same. The wolf howls. Wonderful. This is a chorus, this is a howl, they indicate their presence, their strength to their neighbors. There are even studies that show that they often howl synchronously, that they howl and respond, and respond again. Yesterday we showed that a pack of wolves hunts on average in the conditions of Kolyma once every 8 days. It's nonsense when we hear that a wolf consumes 5 kilograms of meat every day, it's nonsense, it's absolute nonsense. Otherwise, no population of ungulates would withstand this pressure. They would run out, undermine their resource, and then they themselves would be destroyed. Some say that my dog ​​has three meals a day, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but the wolf is even worse. But in general, predators rarely have successful prey. For example, tigers have somewhere in the middle, somewhere around 8-10 days, leopards, we have work on leopards in the Caucasus and the Far East, too, we have shown that it is about 8-10 days. In fact, this is a certain process of influence, a certain career, a certain race of ungulates to avoid a predator, and predators to successfully get an ungulate, and there is influence both on each other and among themselves. There are studies that have shown that when tigers, for example, attack livestock, their cortisol level is very high - these are stress hormones. And what is a high stress level? This means that this is the price of this high stress, this is a lower level of immunity. That's why everything in nature has a price. Nothing is ever free, including cheese in a mousetrap. That's why for a wolf, if he can hunt wild prey, he will avoid hunting domestic prey. When he has no wild prey left, he switches to domestic prey, because he still wants to live. Lyudmila Shcherbakova: In this regard, can I ask a question? Our reindeer herders say that it is supposedly wolves that largely exterminate the reindeer population, and that this is the reason why our reindeer herding industry is not developing. Could this really be so, or are they exaggerating? Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco: Of course, if there is a resource, the predator will try to use it. It all depends on the price it has for using this resource. It also depends on the food tradition. Wolves have traditions. Wolves actually have a culture that is passed down from generation to generation. Sometimes it even seems surprising. For example, there are wolves that can hunt elk together, for example, in Belarus. There are wolves, for example, in Tigrovaya Valka, that hunt large wild boars. Because they have learned to do it, they are good at it. It is precisely this tradition that is the issue. If there is an available wild prey, a wild species, they will use it. If it is in large numbers... you see, it becomes very difficult for a wolf that hunts wild deer. It has a strategy to hunt wild deer. If a domestic one appears, which is easier to hunt, it is clear that it will try to hunt it. Lyudmila Shcherbakova: But in connection with this, I know that you are against any kind of wolf shooting, is it because, as I understand it, this does not solve the problem? Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco: Yes, that's not exactly what I'm saying, the wolf problem is conflict situations, also a conflict between humans and wolves, it only has a scientific solution, and shooting wolves, as a rule, is a disservice, it only makes the situation worse, you can shoot wisely, without destroying the population structure, but this is only shooting young animals, that is, individuals that are not yet adults, that are older than one year. As a rule, this is a kind of exchange coin of the population, the violation of which does not greatly disrupt the structure. The main thing is that adults are not touched, because if you imagine in a city, you remove adults, leaving only young people, most likely, you will get punks, most likely, you will just have a mess. If you have a normal structured population of wolves, where it is clearly distributed, you kill the most beautiful, large adults, as a result, a race begins for the rights of who will win. And, as a rule, this structure will be broken, and there will be more pressure on ungulates, more pressure on livestock. That is, on the contrary, you will spoil the situation. I can give another example that very well illustrates how complicated it all is. For example, when you have two neighboring packs, there is a certain overlapping area. We have already understood that the conflict between the packs is very acute, so they try not to attack each other. In the conditions of the northwestern Caspian region, it turned out that where neighboring packs are adjacent, in the overlapping area, this is called the buffer zone, the probability that a wolf will attack a saiga is very small, because they do not want to conflict with their neighbors. And it so happened that it is there, in this part, that calving occurs. Because it so happened historically that where at these junctions, wolves will not attack these saigas, or will attack to a lesser extent. Just imagine, if you go and kill wolves now, you will hardly be able to equally, let's say, reduce their numbers. Most likely, it will be a random process. You met a group, and you just shot it. Just imagine what will happen if you left some neighbors, almost 2-3 individuals, but the others will have a full-fledged pack. So they will simply understand that they have no conflict, that they can develop a new area, appropriate a new area. And they will also influence the saiga, and the influence of the saiga will be greater than before, when there were more wolves. That is, it is a complex balance that is very easy to upset. The same thing happens with dogs, with the attitude of wolves to dogs. If you reduce the number of wolves, at a certain level of population density, the wolf attacks and eats stray dogs. But if the number of wolves is very low, when wolves are dispersed, the probability that a wolf will still mate with a dog will be very high, the probability of hybrids will be very high. Hybrids are scary. Firstly, they are not afraid of people, secondly, they have completely different rules of the game from wolves, that is, the pressure on livestock will be greater, the pressure on hunting resources will be greater and most importantly, they will be able to enter the village, this becomes dangerous for people, because in most cases we have wolf attacks in villages, and, as a rule, it is found out at the end that these are hybrid individuals. And in the end, we have a deplorable result. We did not solve the problem, but aggravated it, and we lost the wolf as a species in that zone. Lyudmila Shcherbakova: Have you met with our reindeer herders and given them some advice on how to behave with wolves, what exactly? Jose Antonio Hernandez-Blanco: Yesterday we had people who are engaged in deer, domestic reindeer herding. They were interested in these scientific issues, problems. Not just solving them on their own, but consulting with experts. I am saying that one of the most effective solutions for regulating wolf numbers, I have not come up with anything new. Firstly, it is avoiding wolf attacks on deer using the Bologov method. That is, when a wolf is a neophobe, you can avoid attacks on wolves, but flags are also used when hunting. You can also use different objects to protect the appearance of wolves in certain areas. But you need to understand that this needs to be changed often. It often happens in the forest that you want wolves not to approach a certain place, you hang a dirty frying pan, a rag, a balloon, a flag, a quilted jacket there, but you need to change it at least once every 2 weeks, otherwise the wolf will simply get used to it. When a wolf sees this object, it is wary and does not approach. The same is true with flags. If you hang hunting flags, your young ones will not pass. But if you leave them, in 2 weeks they will simply get used to it and pass by. This is the first thing. But this does not work for open habitats. Because when a wolf sees this dangerous object from afar, it gets used to it faster. If we have open habitats, this task is more difficult to accomplish. The second thing that is very important is to regulate the wolf population so that it does not disrupt the population structure. How is this possible? Find a den and remove a certain number of individuals from the litter. Because otherwise, if you shoot wolves, firstly, you disrupt this structure, secondly, the wolf's response will be unexpected. The wolf is capable. With a normal population structure, wolves now reproduce only at 16% of their potential. If a wolf senses danger to the population's existence, it increases productivity. This is to the detriment of females and so on, but it can do it, there are enough resources. Therefore, as they say, you wanted to kill one wolf, and five appeared, that's one. Secondly, another thing that is even difficult to understand, when the population structure is disrupted, for example, the wolf, the settling sex, these are females, as a rule, the probability that the male remains in the composition is very high, and the females disperse. As a rule, you have a one-to-one sex ratio in a litter. If there is pressure from humans, the proportion of females increases. That is, for example, we see in the Caspian region, when shepherds on motorcycles chase wolves, and they are very easy to kill. The answer is not 4, not 5 wolf cubs in a litter, but 12, of which 10 are females. The probability that at 9 months they are already getting stronger and more robust, and spreading out, that they shoot, and that they reproduce to support this population size, is very high. Therefore, this is what the shepherds say, that there is a lot of mysticism here. It is as if we kill them, they take revenge. It is as if we kill them, and their number increases. Yes, there is a scientific explanation for this process. The wolf is one of the main species of fauna in the country. And the problem associated with this species has only a scientific solution. Lyudmila Shcherbakova: Thank you very much.