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.

In the specially protected water area of ​​the Olga Bay of Kronotsky Bay, scientists from the A.N. Severtsov Institute for Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences have begun the next stage of research on the most ancient baleen whales listed in the Red Books of all levels. Olga Bay in the Kronotsky Reserve has been serving gray whales native to the waters of California and Mexico for many years as a kind of summer restaurant. Here, after wintering off the coast of North America and the birth of offspring, they “halt” during a long migration to feed in shallow water off benthos - organisms that live at the bottom of the coastal zone or above its surface. These are bottom fish species, crustaceans and various mollusks. In the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, where fishing is not carried out and there is no intensive navigation, the whales feel completely safe. Gray whales are one of the main objects of observation for participants in sea excursions and scientific expeditions in the protected bay. In July, here you can see about fifty individuals in one day, watch their fountains. IEE RAS expedition to study gray whales started in early June. Marine biologists conduct photo-ID of animals. This is necessary in order to trace the migration path of "old acquaintances" and to add new encountered individuals to the existing catalogs of gray whales. The data will allow us to learn more about the migration routes and lifestyle of ancient marine mammals and develop recommendations for the conservation of the population. The expedition members shared their first results.

An increase in temperature in water bodies can lead to a noticeable change in the life cycle of parasites, according to the research of scientists from the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS. Due to global warming, it is possible to change the “parasite-host” chains, which will lead to a restructuring of the entire appearance of freshwater ecosystems. In recent years, there has been growing interest among scientists in how temperature affects the risk of transmission of infections in ecosystems, or, in other words, the interaction of parasites and their hosts. To find out, scientists from the IEE RAS studied how temperature affects the separation of the dispersal stages (larvae/cercariae) of two closely related species of parasitic flatworms (trematodes): Rhipidocotyle campanula and R. fennica. The first intermediate host in these species of trematodes is the mollusk - common toothless (Anodonta anatina), the second roach. And only the final owners - predatory fish - differ. To conduct the experiment, scientists collected mollusks from rivers and distributed them in flow tanks with three temperature regimes. The average temperature in these tanks was 18°C ​​(range 7-24°C), 15°C (7-20°C) and 13°C (6-18°C). The design of the experiment did not assume a constant temperature of the molluscs. On the contrary, it had to fluctuate in accordance with seasonal changes, as in natural ecosystems, to emulate the real world in terms of global warming. The experiment lasted five months. Every two weeks, the scientists checked whether the molluscs secreted parasitic larvae (cercariae) and, if so, how many.

The A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS became the winner of the competition "State support for scientific research conducted under the guidance of leading scientists in Russian educational institutions of higher education, scientific institutions and state scientific centers of the Russian Federation" (9th stage). The application was supported by the leading international scientist Enric Gisbert Casas, whose main place of work is the Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentaries (IRTA), Spain. From the Russian side, the main executors of the grant included researchers from the IEE RAS Mikhail Gopko, Eduard Galoyan, Anna Vasilyeva, Evgeny Esin. From the Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, researchers Evgeny Simonov, Elena Kashinskaya, Pavel Vlasenko and Mikhail Solovyov take part in the work. The project "Evolution of the functioning of the digestive system of ectothermic vertebrates as a mechanism for mastering a contrasting habitat" is aimed at solving one of the fundamental problems of biology - determining the patterns of evolutionary transformations of the digestive tract of animals for the successful transformation of matter and energy in aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In the course of this project, a modern laboratory of evolutionary trophology will be created on the basis of the IEE RAS. The laboratory will study specialized groups of fish, amphibians and reptiles, characterized by contrasting food adaptations and living in various natural conditions from the Arctic to the tropics. In addition to the tasks of a fundamental nature, approaches will be found to the development of specialized feeds and additives that will improve the efficiency of raising animals in aquaculture.