Biologists from the A.N.Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow) and the I.D.Papanin Institute for Biology of Inland Waters of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Borok), in collaboration with scientists from the State University of New York, studied the sequences of several genes of the water fleas of the genus Bosminopsis and reconstructed their evolutionary history. It turned out that first representatives of this genus originated in the time of the dinosaurs. This study is one of the stages in the formation of new ideas about the biogeography of freshwater animals in Eurasia. The article was published in the journal PeerJ with the support of the Russian Science Foundation (RSF), the press service of the foundation briefly told about the results of the study. Water fleas, or branched crustaceans, are microscopic, no more than six millimeters, animals, and the size of representatives of the bosminid family is even less than a millimeter. They are so widespread that individual representatives can be found even in Antarctica. In total, about 850 different species of water fleas are known today. They are used as food for aquarium and industrial fish and as indicators of the toxicity of aqueous solutions of chemical compounds. In addition, the genome of water fleas provides extensive material for research, since it contains more than 30 thousand different genes, which, for example, is 5-10 thousand more genes than in humans.

In the Stepnoy Wildlife Refuge (Astrakhan Oblast), the work of a group of employees of the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution RAS (IEE RAS) under the leadership of RAS Academician V.V. Rozhnov continues the tagging of newborn saigas with ultra-light ear tags that do not cause disturbance to the animals. This is a continuation of the development of the technology for studying the movements of saigas using scientific equipment installed on the Russian segment of the ISS. While tagging the saiga calves, not a single animal was harmed. Earlier, we reported on the cooperation of the IEE RAS with the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior, Germany, the Institute of Geography of the Russian Academy of Sciences and RSC Energia, within the framework of which the employees of the IEE RAS take part in the implementation of the Russian-German project ICARUS. The goal of this project is to organize global monitoring of the movement of animals from space in order to understand the reasons for their movements and to understand the complex processes taking place in ecosystems. At the end of 2020, the first five transmitters were tested on adult saigas. In agreement with the partners and after obtaining the necessary permits, it was decided to tag saigas with miniature ICARUS Basic Tag Solar / GPS devices powered by solar batteries that were placed on the animals’ mammalian ear tag platform.

On the scientific expeditionary vessel "Mikhail Somov" two lectures were held by the staff of the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, who are in charge of the expedition for the "Narwhal" project. Ilya Murashev spoke about the ecology and bird diversity of the high-latitude Arctic. Svetlana Artemieva - about marine mammals. Svetlana, a research associate of the Narwhal project and a leading engineer at the Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has been studying marine mammals for many years and is capable of, almost by a wave surge, distinguishing who is under the water: a humpback or a killer whale, a porpoise or a bowhead whale. Seals, walruses, beluga whales, ringed seals, polar bears (also marine mammals), narwhals - each species has its own characteristics and mysteries. Why do narwhals have teeth yet walruses tusks? Who is ready to eat their seal relative? What whales run away from the ship by swimming on their backs? Where are the "carding places" of marine life? Is it necessary to save the seal pups caught on the ice during the ice drift? And how to become a marine biologist? These two lectures have more purposes than education. Members of the Arctic Floating University can help the Narwhal project with the observation of birds and marine mammals. Students and their supervisors are constantly observing for their projects, divided into watches: the weather, the ice, the sea debris, the birds ... And it may well turn out that they will spot a whale or even a narwhal. The information and photos derived from their observation will be of great value to the colleagues as well.

This question from the project "My Planet" is answered by Maria Erofeeva, Ph.D., Senior Researcher, Laboratory of Behavior and Behavioral Ecology of Mammals, IEE RAS. Where the saying that a cat has nine lives, and not seven or, for example, ten, came from, is not known for certain. This is probably due to the fact that the number 9 has often appeared in myths, legends and has long been considered magical, since it closes the cycle 1-9. Perhaps the agility of this predator and the ability to land on four legs led to the fact that people began to attribute magical abilities to it. However, in reality the cat only has one life. It's just that nature has endowed the animal with a good sense of balance. Thanks to the developed vestibular apparatus, cats are not afraid of heights and can deftly walk on cornices, roofs and other heights. If they are to fall, they turn over in the air with their back up, spread their paws wide to the sides and land on all fours. As a result of such a maneuver, the surface of the body increases and the fall slows down as the "parachute effect" is triggered. The tail acts as a balancer in flight. But this does not mean that cats without a tail are doomed. Such animals have learned to use their hind legs to maintain momentum. In addition to a sense of balance, a flexible spine helps cats roll over in the air and spread their legs wide. Some have put forward opinions that cats do not have collarbones and that is why they are less injured when landing on their paws. It is not true. Cats have collarbones, but they are attached only on one side, which makes animals more flexible. For example, dogs cannot spread their paws this wide.

Three males of the Red Data Book saigas raised in the nursery were released into their natural habitat in the specially protected natural area of the Stepnoy State Wildlife Refuge in the Limansky region of the area. Until 2014, the number of saigas in the world has been steadily decreasing: the population in the North-Western Caspian region has decreased 50 times over 20 years - from 250 thousand to 4.5 thousand individuals. The main factor that led to the catastrophic decline in saiga numbers was selective poaching of males. “The released animals are 3 years old. The rut (mating period) takes place in saigas in December, earlier we released them by this time. However, according to our observations, released in winter, they often died, since the rutting period for them is a very difficult time, they tire themselves out, eat little and they have no chance of escaping from predators. For the first time in the Astrakhan Region, this event happened in the summer,” said Vyacheslav Rozhnov, Chief Researcher at the AN Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, at the saiga release event. State nature reserve "Stepnoy" with an area of 109.4 thousand hectares is a specially protected natural area of regional significance. Every year since 2014, the release of male saigas, raised in semi-free conditions in the Saigak nursery, has been taking place regularly.

The site of the “Scientific Russia” project has published a large amount of material about Lake Glubokoe. The water column of the lakes is divided into epilimnion, metalimnion and hypolimnion (“limnos” - Greek for “lake”), that is, into the upper layer of the lake, middle and lower. The boundaries of the layers are determined depending on the temperature of the water. In summer, the epilimnion is usually warm, with the same temperature throughout the layer. Only in its lower part does it decrease slightly. The epilimnion temperature in the middle of summer reaches 20-25 degrees. In the lower part of the lake (in hypolimnion), the temperature is also even, but very cold, within 5-6 degrees. At times it can be slightly lower. In the middle part of the lake (metalimnion), the water temperature drops abruptly. In the upper part of this layer, it can be within 20 ° C (as in the epilimnion), and after 3-5 m - already 7-10 ° C, or even lower. So, for example, in Lake Glubokoe (Moscow region), the temperature drops from 20 degrees to 10 ° C. On the shore of this lake there is a biological station “Glubokoe Ozero” (“Lake Glubokoe”), which was founded in 1891. All this time, hydrobiological work has been carried out there. It belongs to the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of RAS. By the middle of the warm summer, the thickness of the epilimnion reaches 5-7 m, the metalimnion - 3-7 m or more, depending on the heating of the water. The hypolimnion at the end of summer starts from 7-10 m and extends to the maximum depth. Lake Glubokoe has a depth of 32 meters.

The instrument base of the South Valdai Ecological Observatory of the IEE RAS “Okovsky Les” has been updated. A new mobile gas analyzer Li-7810 (Li-Cor Inc.) was obtained, assembled and tested, which simultaneously measures the concentrations of carbon dioxide, methane and water in the atmosphere. The kit also includes an automatic smart camera that independently opens, closes and purges, as well as makes the final calculation of greenhouse gas flows with parallel measurement of soil and air temperatures and recording GPS coordinates. The number of measurements, exposure time and other settings are set remotely using a smartphone. This measuring complex greatly expands the possibilities in terms of local measurements of greenhouse gas fluxes at the level of microforms and landscape facies on the territory of the observatory.

Scientists from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences, together with colleagues, conducted a large-scale study of the smallest cladocerans belonging to the genus Alonella. A detailed study of these crustaceans has shown that many of their genetic lines exist all over the world, most likely as separate species. Studies of the diversity of these animals are pertinent since planktonic crustaceans are food for a very large number of commercial freshwater fish. The results of the work, supported by a grant from the Russian Science Foundation, are published in the scientific Internet portal PeerJ. Water bodies around the world are home to small, almost imperceptible planktonic crustaceans. Today there are more than 850 species of crustaceans, differing in habitat, feeding method, structure. On average, the body length of these animals ranges from 0.2 to 12 millimeters, depending on the species. Their tiny size complicates the work of scientists, so these crustaceans have been very poorly studied. However, research on animal diversity continues due to its importance - planktonic crustaceans are a food source to a very large number of commercial freshwater fish. Russian scientists from the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Moscow), who study cladocerans, have studied the smallest of them, representatives of the genus Alonella, for a long time. These crustaceans are found mainly in the Northern Hemisphere. Thanks to international cooperation, biologists have been able to conduct a large-scale study of samples from different countries, including Ethiopia, South Korea and Mongolia.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.