Special Issue "Biodiversity and Ecology Research in Russia: Recent Advances and Future Trends"
A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Biodiversity Conservation".
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 20 December 2023 | Viewed by 20103
Special Issue Editors
Interests: benthic ecology; crustacean biology; fisheries; aquaculture; biological invasions; Arctic shelf; Barents Sea
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Interests: biodiversity; tapeworms; phylogeny; phylogeography; systematics; rodent helminths; co-phylogeny of parasites and hosts; life cycles of tapeworms
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
Russia is the largest country in the world, covering approximately 17,125,200 square kilometers and encompassing one-eighth of Earth's inhabitable landmass. A variety of environmental conditions, from a humid subtropical climate in the south, to a polar climate in the north, result in highly diverse and unique ecosystems, including polar deserts, tundra, forest tundra, taiga, mixed and broadleaf forest, forest steppe, steppe, semi-desert, and subtropics. Russian biodiversity encompasses 25,000 species of fungi, 12,500 species of vascular plants, and 9,000 species of algae. The Russian fauna is composed of 150,000 species of invertebrates, 2,000 species of fish, 730 species of birds, 320 species of mammals, 75 species of reptiles, and 30 species of amphibians with high endemism of freshwater fish and invertebrates. Climate change, environmental pollution, and biological invasions are the main drivers of biological diversity worldwide. New information is needed to evaluate the role of these processes in the structure and function of ecosystems in Russia.
This Special Issue welcomes manuscripts focusing on various problems related to ecological research and biodiversity studies in Russia, including local biodiversity patterns both in terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems, biological indication, biological invasions, management, conservation, and population ecology, as well as the ecology of key, endangered and threatened species. We encourage you to submit articles ranging from case reports to interdisciplinary studies.
Dr. Alexander Dvoretsky
Dr. Krivopalov Anton
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- biodiversity
- conservation
- terrestrial ecosystems
- aquatic ecosystems
- population ecology
- species interactions
- biological indicators
- endangered species
- threatened species
- biological invasions
- climate change
- environmental pollution
Planned Papers
The below list represents only planned manuscripts. Some of these manuscripts have not been received by the Editorial Office yet. Papers submitted to MDPI journals are subject to peer-review.
Title: Parasitic animals in hypersaline waters of the World: influence of salinity
Authors: Nickolai Shadrin, et al.
Affiliation: NA
Title: Palaecological evidences for peatland development and restoration processes in the southern taiga of European Russia
Authors: Yuri Mazei, et al.
Affiliation: Lomonosov Moscow State University, Leninskiye Gory, 1, 199991 Moscow, Russia
Title: The effects of vegetation and environmental variables on testate amoeba assemblages in Sphagnum peatlands in the Northern Caucasus Mountains
Authors: Andrey Tsyganov, et al.
Affiliation: Department of General Ecology and Hydrobiology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, 119234 Moscow, Russia
Abstract: Understanding interactions among functional groups of living organisms within ecosystems is a major challenge in ecology. In this work we study the effects of macro- (location, altitude and mire size) and micro- environmental (water table depth, pH, mineralization and local temperature) characteristics and vegetation composition (both vascular plants and bryophytes) on the species composition of testate amoeba assemblages in eight Sphagnum-dominated mires across the Northern Caucasus Mountains (Russia). In the result we revealed a diverse composition of vascular plant, bryophyte and testate amoeba assemblages which overall was typical for Sphagnum-dominated mires. In total, 97 taxa of testate amoebae belonging to34 genera were observed. To explore the relationships among the collected data sets we used multifactor analysis (MFA) which indicated that variation in vegetation (both vascular plants and bryophytes) and testate amoeba assemblages contributed the most to the differences among sites which generally reflect the acidic and trophic gradients across the studied mires. The greatest correlations were observed between testate amoebae and macro-environmental variables (RV = 0.38) and vegetation (RV = 0.37). When the vegetation data set was split into vascular plants and bryophytes, testate amoebae were stronger correlated to bryophytes (RV = 0.35) than to vascular plants (RV = 0.27), whereas vascular plants and bryophytes were characterized by highest RV values (RV = 0.41). These results were supported by partial redundancy analysis. Among the micro-environmental variables, pH and water table depth explained most of the variation in the species composition of testate amoeba assemblages. Overall, the results of the study indicate strong effects of local vegetation on overall species structure of testate amoebae that might be explained by additional effects of vegetation (through litter quality and amount, exudates, etc.) on the soil microbial communities. Most of the effects seem to be highly related to each other, so that the proportion of jointly explained variation was considerable, whereas the individual effects were much lower and insignificant. In order to disentangle these effects future studies should address this question using field or laboratory experiments.