In North Ossetia, the Central Asian leopard Baksan (Batraz) has been found, the signals from the satellite collar having ceased transmission more than three months ago. On January 30, 2021, he was spotted near the road in the Koban Gorge and eyewitnesses managed to photograph him on a smartphone. Immediately after receiving the message, the monitoring group of zoologists went to the indicated area and, using highly sensitive devices, established contact with the satellite collar of the leopard Baksan. Baksan's collar stopped sending signals back on October 21, 2020, in connection with which there was a fear that the Red Book animal could have become a victim of poachers. Because of this hazard, a statement was sent to the internal affairs bodies of North Ossetia, but the police found no evidence of poaching. “We hoped that Baksan was alive and that contact with him was lost due to a technical malfunction of the collar. After eyewitnesses promptly sent a video clip of a predator caught in the camera lens in a wooded area near the road to the Eco-squad "Bars", we examined a collar on the leopard's neck. We knew that another released leopard, a female Agura, was at that time in a different place, and Volna dropped her collar in Kabardino-Balkaria last year. The group of scientific support of the project immediately moved to the indicated area to check everything on the spot. There, with the help of highly sensitive devices, the zoologists established communication on special frequencies with Baksan’s collar that had failed. It is a great joy that he is alive and well, and we are very grateful to the eyewitnesses who did not lose composure and managed to capture the leopard on their smartphone and sent us highly useful video evidence. The return of Baksan to our field of vision brings back the hope of obtaining offspring from the leopards released into the wild in North Ossetia,” said the director of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS Academician of RAS Vyacheslav Rozhnov. The scientist added that today the Institute has information about the presence in Ossetia of three Central Asian leopards (Caucasian leopards) - two females and one male, released in North Ossetia in 2018 and 2020. Experts continue to monitor the released female leopard Agura, whose collar regularly transmits data about her location and the places of successful hunting. At present, it is known that Agura has successfully formed her own territory and habitat and, after release, has covered a total of 867 km in Ossetia. The program for the restoration of the Central Asian leopard in the Caucasus is being implemented by the Ministry of Natural Resources of Russia with the participation of the Sochi National Park, the Caucasian Nature Reserve, the North Ossetian Nature Reserve, the Alania National Park, the World Fund for Nature, the A.N. Severtsov Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IEE RAS), A.K. Tembotov Institute of Ecology of Mountain Territories RAS, Moscow Zoo, with the assistance of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA). VTB Bank provides financial support for the monitoring of the Central Asian leopard in the Caucasus. In North Ossetia, RusHydro provides financial support for the population recovery program. Information for inquiries: Project coordinator of IEE RAS and RusHydro on the implementation of the recovery program of the Caucasian leopard (Central Asian leopard) in North Ossetia Alibekov Artur Bilalovich Tel .: +7 (968) 720-05-05 Hotline: 8 (800) 550 89 15 E-mail: alibekovab@gmail.com www.ВозвращениеБарса.РФ   Materials: 15-й регион: "В Северной Осетии нашелся переднеазиатский леопард Батраз" Спутник Осетии: "В Северной Осетии на видео очевидцев попал считавшийся пропавшим барс" ТАСС: "В Северной Осетии нашли леопарда, пропавшего более трех месяцев назад" Минприроды России: "В Северной Осетии обнаружен пропавший в октябре леопард Баксан"

At the beginning of December 2020, we received the first information about the stranding of the corpses of the Red Book Caspian seals on the Dagestan coast. Employees of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS (IEE RAS) who have been studying this species within the framework of the international Kazakh-Russian Program of Caspian Seal Research in the Northern Caspian Sea (2019-2023), have left for the areas of stranding after the first reports. On-site studies were organized jointly with the staff of the Caspian Institute of Biological Resources of the Dagestan Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (PIBR DNC RAS) and a veterinarian of the Moskvarium Center for Oceanography and Marine Biology. Later, when the number of dead animals rose to the hundreds, employees of the All-Russian Research Institute of Fisheries and Oceanography (VNIRO) joined the IEE RAS expedition, which contributed to the expansion of the range of work. For molecular-virological, toxicological, hormonal, genetic, histological and morphological studies, researchers from IEE RAS and a veterinarian of the Center for Oceanography and Marine Biology "Moskvarium" took samples of biological material from 13 dead seals. These were mainly adult females - five of them were pregnant. One of the animals showed signs of entangling, left over from being caught in the net. Dead seals were monitored along the entire coastline accessible for walking. Employees of the PEE RAS and PIBR DNC RAS surveyed 30 km along the coast. Over 300 dead seals were found in this area. All the animals found were carefully photographed, the coordinates of their detection were recorded, which would later be used to compile a map of strandings. To account for the number of seals thrown onto sandy beaches open to the sea, 10 linear counting sites were set evenly throughout the coastal zone. Counting of dead animals at these sites and subsequent extrapolation showed that on the sandy beaches open to the sea, the length of which along the Dagestan coast of the Caspian Sea reaches 160 km, almost two thousand seals could have thrown themselves onto the shore, with an average density of more than a dozen individuals per kilometer of the coastline. The information received to date is not sufficient to form a hypothesis about the reasons for the death of such a large number of Caspian seals. All collected samples will be sent for research to various laboratories, and efforts of various organizations will be combined to find out the cause of the death of the seals.

The new FAO report "Current knowledge of soil biological diversity - state, changes and potentialities", in the creation of which the staff of the IEE RAS has taken part, is available for free download from the FAO website. In celebration of World Soil Day, established by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and celebrated on 5 December, the report "Current knowledge of soil biological diversity - state, changes and potentialities" was finalized and presented. To prepare it, hundreds of specialists from more than 100 countries of the world united their efforts for a comprehensive analysis of the state of biological diversity of soils, the stability of ecosystem functions performed by soil biota, the most tangible threats to the stability of soils and their biological diversity, as well as the prospects for further soil-ecological research. This work was coordinated by experts from FAO and the Global Soil Biodiversity Initiative (GSBI). Employees of the laboratory for studying the ecological functions of soils at the A.N.Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences co-authored this document from the Russian Federation. They took part in expert groups assessing the current state of soil biodiversity in the world, as well as studying threats to soil stability and functioning. “The work of hundreds of fellow soil zoologists and ecologists has made it possible to create a comprehensive analytical document that will be useful not only to the expert community, but also to decision-makers in the development of strategic documents related to agriculture, land use and environmental protection,” says the head laboratory of ecological functions of soils, member of the GSBI expert council, doctor of biological sciences Konstantin Bronislavovich Gongalsky. “This report is especially appealing because it is a complex interdisciplinary study covering all aspects of the conservation, enhancement, and use of the economic potential of biological diversity of soils”, - agrees with him the co-author of the report, leading researcher of the laboratory of ecological functions of soils, candidate of geographical sciences Andrey Stanislavovich Zaitsev. Currently, work is underway to translate the Report into other official languages of the United Nations, including Russian. The text of the report can be found by following the link: http://www.fao.org/documents/card/ru/c/CB1928EN/

Specialists from the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS (IEE RAS) for many years have been fruitfully cooperating with the staff of the Stepnoy Reserve located in the Limansky District of the Astrakhan Region, the information about the research can be found on the Institute's website. One of the areas of such joint work is related to the study and conservation of the saiga population in the North-Western Caspian region. On the territory of the Stepnoy Reserve, selected as a model site, for more than 15 years field data has been collected in a format developed by the Institute's staff, a comprehensive analysis of which made it possible to analyze the spatial distribution and ethological structure of this population, and also to establish that the main part of it throughout the year is kept within the Stepnoy Reserve and in the adjacent territories. The collected field materials, which are the basis for long-term monitoring, are extremely important for planning conservation measures aimed at the restoration of this saiga population both in the near future and in the long term. Previously, field data on the sightings of saigas and other animals, climatic indicators, any factors and phenomena that may affect the well-being of a small and completely isolated population of the North-Western Caspian Sea region were recorded by the staff of the Reserve in "paper forms" with their subsequent "transfer" to the electronic database, which significantly slowed down the process of preparing data for analysis. In order to keep up with the times and put the achievements of modern technologies to good use, dispensing with the use of "paper forms" in the field, the staff of the Stepnoy Reserve and the IEE RAS turned to the management of NextGIS (headed by M. Dubinin) with a request to create a program that would allow make field data collection more technological. Such a product turned out to be NextGIS Collector technology, developed by the company, which allows you to set up forms for collecting observations in a matter of hours, organize the database itself and launch your own project. Previously, NextGIS Collector technology has proven itself well for collecting field data on species of wild animals such as wolves and snow leopards living in different natural conditions. After the adaptation of the software for the specific tasks aimed at the saiga population inhabiting the North-Western Caspian region, in February 2020, a special field workshop was held for the staff of the Stepnoy Reserve, during which the capabilities of NextGIS Collector were demonstrated, with special attention paid to eliminating possible failures and finalizing the product itself in the process of use, and, of course, employees were trained in the procedure for collecting and transmitting field data. It must be said that the initial skepticism of the Stepnoy Reserve staff associated with the change in their routine and habitual work of filling out “paper forms” quickly changed to an understanding of the transition to a completely new modern level of field data collection. Almost 10 months have passed since the start of the project on collecting data on the territory of the Stepnoy Reserve using NextGIS Collector, and these months have shown how correct the choice was. The well-established communication with the developers made it possible to promptly make corrections and adjustments to the failures that occurred in the early days of using the software. Now the staff of the Stepnoy Reserve, having quickly and easily mastered all the capabilities of the program, use smartphones to enter field observations into electronic forms, which are automatically transferred to a database suitable for any processing and analysis by the IEE RAS staff. To date, the database contains more than 500 meeting points for saigas with the ability to show the location on the map of the gathering point and attached photographs that help to identify the landscape features of the area. Collecting field data continues, and we look forward to receiving new information on the biology and ecology of the Northwest Caspian saiga population!   Illustrations: 1. Entering data into the NextGIS Collector application (photo by G. Kalmykov) 2. Electronic input form on the smartphone screen (photo by G. Kalmykov) 3. A fragment of a completed database and a photograph on an automatically updated map

The release of saigas into the wild from the Saigak nursery of the Astrakhansky state hunting property (ГООХ), carried out on December 4, 2020, is a multi-year project implemented as part of the regional project “Conservation of biological diversity and development of ecological tourism”, which is part of the federal project of the same name. At this stage, specialists from the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS (IEE RAS), which, as already mentioned before (LINK), within the framework of the Russian-German project “ICARUS” IEE RAS collaborates with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (Germany) and the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences, implementing the project “Protected Areas for Saigas”. Two weeks ago, the saigas specially prepared in the nursery for their release into the wild in the territory of the Stepnoy Reserve were equipped with ultra-light ear tags that do not disturb the animals and represent a new type of satellite transmitter. Within two weeks, the animals underwent adaptation in the "Saigak" nursery, and now three males, delivered to the territory of the "Stepnoy" reserve in special transport boxes, were now released into the wild. Those present at the release of saigas, member of the institute A.A. Yachmennikova, as well as specialists from the Saigak nursery, the Stepnoy Wildlife Refuge, representatives of the Limansky District Administration and the Environmental Management and Environmental Protection Service of the Astrakhan Region, and the journalists, were able to observe how the trinity of males rushed together to the nearby saigas. Now a rut is taking place on the territory of the Stepnoy reserve, where herds of saigas graze, and we hope that the animals raised in the Astrakhansky state hunting property (ГООХ) will find mates of their own. We consider the participation of our Institute in the ongoing release of saigas bred in the Saigak nursery of the Astrakhansky state hunting property (ГООХ) and equipped with satellite ear tags to the Stepnoy Reserve as a continuation of the implementation of various projects of the Institute for the Study and Conservation of Saigas in the North-Western Caspian region and close cooperation with any interested parties. The telemetric information received via the ISS to the Mission Control Center from the satellite will make it possible to track the movements of saigas, assess the success of their participation in the rut and outline measures to improve their protection, and also identify the most preferred habitats.   More information: Служба природопользования и охраны окружающей среды Астраханской области: "В Астраханской области состоялся выпуск самцов сайгаков в естественную среду обитания" РИА Волга: "Под Астраханью выпустили в степь трех сайгаков с GPS-передатчиками" Астрахань 24: "В АСТРАХАНСКОЙ ОБЛАСТИ ВЫПУСТИЛИ НА ВОЛЮ МОЛОДЫХ САЙГАКОВ" Астрахань.Ру: "Молодые сайгаки с GPS-передатчиками были выпущены в астраханскую степь"

In the fall of 2020, the Institute continued the study of the Caspian seal as part of the Russian-Kazakh Program for the Study of the Caspian Seal in the Northern Caspian Sea for 2019-2023 and, with the financial support of NCOC, conducted an autumn expedition. Field work in the northeastern part of the Caspian Sea (water area of the Republic of Kazakhstan) took place from October 31 to November 14, 2020. Employees of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS (IEE RAS) Maria Solovyova, Gleb Pilipenko, Dmitry Glazov, Natalia Shumeiko, as well as Kazakhstani colleagues - employees of the Research and Production Center for Microbiology and Virology of the Republic of Kazakhstan A.I. Kydyrmanov, K.O. Karamendin, E.T. Kasymbekov and employees of the Kazakhstan Agency of Applied Ecology (KAPE) RK F.V. Klimov, A.N. Mulyaev. The work was carried out from the research vessel "Alina", which on October 31 set sail from the port of Bautino and moved towards the north-eastern part of the Caspian Sea. Research vessel Alina While the vessel was sailing, the staff of the IPEE RAS carried out passing counts of the Caspian seal encounters. In good weather, 1-2 observers stood on the upper deck all daylight hours and recorded all encounters of seals. Although few animals were encountered, some were photographed. Caspian seal at sea The most important task of the work was the capture of live Caspian seals, which was carried out on shalygs - areas of the seabed which are bare due to the very low water level and form small sand spits. Shalygs are used by Caspian seals for rest. Caspian seals on a shalyg Capturing animals demanded the maximum mobilization of physical forces from the members of the expedition. In a matter of seconds, when the boat approached the shalyga, it was required of them to jump out of it, run to the nearest seal and grab it by the flippers or cover it with a net. At the same time, the animals, having heard the noise of the boat, began to go off the shalyga, and heavy mustang suits and rubber boots made the task more difficult for the catchers. On the first run, 4 seals were caught. But a few days later, on the second attempt, the catch was much larger - 9 individuals. All captured seals were transported to the Research Vessel Alina, where all further work was carried out. The Caspian seal must be held tight, otherwise it may bite with its sharp teeth The Caspian seal research program is large-scale, and involves a comprehensive study of animal health, biology and ecology of the species. To do this, for various studies (toxicological, hormonal, virological, genetic, etc.) samples of hair, blood, eye and nasal swabs were taken from seals, and the animals themselves were carefully measured and weighed. Measuring the Caspian seal on board the RV "Alina" Taking blood from a vein on the back flipper of the Caspian sea Another challenge was the installation of satellite transmitters. 11 animals were tagged to track the movements of the animals until the next molt. A seal with an attached transmitter   To dive or not to dive, that is the question Caption 1 - The transmitter on the Caspian seal will help determine its swimming routes and resting places

The study was conducted jointly with American colleagues from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Members of the Scapholeberinae subfamily of the Daphniidae family were studied using genetic and morphological methods. Based on the results of the work, a species new to scientific study was identified, named after the outstanding researcher of cladocerans N.N. Smirnov - Scapholeberis smirnovi. Cladocerans ("water fleas") are one of the most common microscopic (most are 0.5-5 mm in size) animals of continental water bodies. They are traditional model objects for biologists of various specialties. It is on their example that the biogeography of freshwater fauna is currently being formed. If the biogeography of terrestrial and marine animals is relatively well studied, the biogeography of the inhabitants of continental water bodies is in its formative stage. Most scientific research on cladocerans has previously been focused on Daphnia, a planktonic crustacean belonging to the large Daphniidae family. At the same time, there are their closest relatives who lead a completely different way of life, attaching themselves from below to the surface film of water, although they are able to swim in water like daphnia. The group of organisms that are associated with the surface film of water is called a "neuston". Scientists of IEE RAS, together with their American colleagues from the State University of New York at Buffalo, studied the members of the Scapholeberinae subfamily of the Daphniidae family, as well as extremely common inhabitants of continental reservoirs of different latitudes using genetic and morphological methods, and an article on the results of these works was published in the journal PeerJ. The genetic part of the work was performed based on the study of the sequences of the mitochondrial COI gene. It is shown that earlier the diversity of representatives of the genus was greatly underestimated. In fact, there are at least 22 distinct genetic groups in the world, each of which appears to be a biological species. Moreover, the distribution of these species around the planet is quite diverse, but almost all phylogroups are distributed only on a single continent (this distribution is called "continental endemism"), and some are endemic to small regions. Interestingly, several “trans-Beringian phylogroups” - that is, common in the eastern part of Eurasia and western North America, were discovered as well. This is quite understandable, taking into account that not long ago, only about 10 thousand years before, two continents were connected by a vast bridge - Beringia. “Thanks to our new data and their coordination with the previously obtained data on 16S + 12S by our team, it became possible to genetically identify the main clades and taxa from the sequences of the COI gene. In 2003, it was proposed to use its sequences as a "genetic barcode" to identify any animal. Serious efforts have been made in the field of obtaining "barcodes", but often they are carried out separately from traditional taxonomy, including the use of signs of their appearance and structure to distinguish between species. For scfoleberin, prior to our study, accurate genetic identification of species was impossible - this was confirmed by the analysis of data on the COI gene sequences in the international databases GenBank and BOLD. The accuracy of species identification before our study was no higher than 30%, meaning that more than two thirds of identifications were erroneous”. “Now this situation has been radically rectified, and an accurate genetic determination of scfoleberin appears to be possible”, said project manager Aleksey Alekseevich Kotov, corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, leading researcher at the Moscow A. N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences. In the Far East of the Russian Federation and in Korea, a species new to science has been discovered, Scapholeberis smirnovi (Garibian et al., 2020), the diagnostic signs of the external structure of which distinguish it from other species. The species is named after Nikolai Nikolaevich Smirnov, an outstanding researcher of cladocerans, and the founder of the Russian school of their study, to which all Russian members of this scientific group belong. The work is being carried out within the framework of the Russian Science Foundation project 18-14-00325.   More information: Indicator: "Живущих под поверхностью водяной пленки ракообразных «штрихкодировали»"

  Over the past month, the released animals have expanded their territories and increased the area they inhabited. Until October 26, in the Caucasian reserve, we received regular transmissions about the location of the female Laba, who moved actively but has only wandered a total of 217 km from the moment of release, while not moving away from the release point by more than 6.5 km. During the period from 8.10 to 26.10, she traveled about 79 km, constantly adhering to the places with the highest density of ungulates. Since her release, her diet has included chamois, Tura, and red deer. Nevertheless, on October 26, Laba's collar sent a message about the death of the animal, a field team was sent to the site in the Caucasian Reserve, which, during the verification of coordinates received from the collar, found the corpse of the deceased female. The body was transported to Sochi for autopsy by veterinarians. After the autopsy, the samples and tissue analyses were sent for examination, and the collar, which accumulated information about the female's activity over the past period, was sent to Moscow to decipher the collected data. A full analysis of the available data can shed light on the probable causes of the leopard's death. Of all the released animals, Laba has explored the smallest area - 38.7 sq km. Since her release, 9 clusters of locations (potential hunting sites for the female) have been registered for Laba, and the examined points have confirmed that she successfully hunted large ungulates. Released together with Laba, the male Kodor, apparently, also explores the territory of the Caucasian reserve. There is no exact information about how he adapts to life in the wild, since the collar attached to him stopped transmitting information immediately after release. However, data from camera traps confirm that the leopard was alive and well at the time of September 30, and the radio signal from its collar is periodically tracked by specialists and, judging by the fact that it is moving, the leopard is safe and moving freely. Once again, the location of Kodor was ch confirmed by specialists on 15.10.2020 via VHF telemetry in the valley of the Laba river in the upper part of its course. Laba and Kodor never met after their release, but both were photographed on the same camera trap two weeks apart. Agura who was released in North Ossetia, has kept to a vast forest area for most of the past month, near the place of her release, and at the moment she has returned to the Turmon reserve. Agura has traveled 343 km since her release, including 25 km in the past month. She is very careful and does not stray too far from the place of release – the maximum distance that she moved away from it over the past month is 20 km. She has mastered the most extensive area of all released leopards – a section in the valley green zone, which currently covers an area of 354 square kilometers. Since then, 9 clusters have been registered for her – places where she hunted. Among her prey are jackals, raccoon dogs, badgers, and wild forest cats. Released together with Agura, the male Baksan has covered 342 km since his release, of which 38 km was covered from October 8 to October 21. The area that Baksan mastered after release was 747 square kilometers. At the same time, he withdrew from the place of release by 38 km. Since then, nine clusters have been registered for the Baksan (places where the leopard hunted prey). His prey included raccoon dogs, jackals, badgers, foxes, and roe deer. On October 21, the transmitter on Baksan's collar stopped sending signals about his location. There is no information about his location at the moment. Field teams are searching for signals from his VHF beacon, and the leopard has not been found so far. For the entire period that has passed since the release, there have never been any meetings of released leopards with each other. The Program to restore the Persian leopard in the Caucasus is implemented by the Ministry of natural resources with participation of the Sochi national Park, Caucasus nature reserve, North-Ossetian nature Reserve, National Park "Alania", World Fund for Nature, A. N. Severtsov Institute of ecology and evolution the Russian Academy of Sciences (IEE RAS), A. K. Tembotov Institute of ecology of mountain territories RAS, Moscow Zoo, in cooperation with the International Union for conservation of nature (IUCN) and the European Association of zoos and aquariums (EAZA). VTB Bank provides financial support for monitoring the Central Asian leopard in the Caucasus. In North Ossetia, RusHydro provides financial support for the population recovery program. Материалы по теме:  ТАСС: "В горах Северной Осетии ищут выпущенного в августе леопарда Батраза"

The K.I. Scriabin award of the Russian Academy of Sciences in 2020 was presented to Doctor of Biological Sciences Terenina Nadezhda Borisovna (A.N.Severtsov Federal State Budgetary Institution of Science Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences) for a series of scientific works "Neurotransmitters in helminths and neurobiological aspects of the relationship between the parasite and the host ". N.B. Terenina is one of the leading experts in the field of research in the neurophysiology of helminths. In the series of works submitted to the competition, she was the first to systematize fundamental analytical data on the presence, localization and content of neurotransmitters (biogenic amines, serotonin, etc.) in helminths of various taxonomic groups at different stages of their life cycle; providing information on the synthesis, metabolism, functional significance of neurotransmitters in parasitic flatworms and a comparative analysis of the morphofunctional organization of their nervous system. Data on the functional characteristics of neurotransmitter systems characteristic of parasitic worms, on neurochemical changes in organs and tissues of animals infested with helminths are presented in her work. The results of the author's many years of research are of great scientific and practical importance and make a significant contribution to the development of helminthology and parasitology in general. They are aimed at solving a fundamental scientific problem - the study of the mechanisms of the relationship between the parasite and the host, which is extremely important in the development of new effective antiparasitic drugs. Research by N.B. Terenina enriched biological science both in fundamental terms and in the field of applied research.