Assessment of landscape fires in 2020 in Russia

Landscape fires are one of the main factors of anthropogenic vegetation and soil transformation, as well as anthropogenic climate change. Despite this, until now there have been no detailed estimates of the scale of all types of landscape fires throughout Russia for a full calendar year. This work was aimed at providing such an assessment for landscape fires in 2020, as well as creating a publicly available map of these fires. The fires were mapped by experts and specially trained volunteers on the basis of Sentinel-2 MSI medium spatial resolution satellite images (20 m/pixel) for two periods — from January 1 to May 15, and from May 16 to December 31 inclusive. The total area of identified landscape fires was 25.84 million hectares. The division of the identified fires into presumably controlled (prescribed burning) and uncontrolled (actually fires) was not carried out within the framework of this work. However, the burned areas, corresponding to the area criterion established for single prescribed burnings (up to 10 hectares), account for only 0.96% of the total area of detected fires. The final map of landscape fires, compiled as a result of this work, is available in the public domain at https://maps.greenpeace.org/maps/gpru/fires_2020.

Database of anthropogenic vegetation of the Urals and adjacent territories

The main data on the geobotanical database – Database of antropogenic vegetation of Urals and adjacent territories registered in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases and the European Vegetation Archive are presented. The database includes more than 4,000 complete geobotanical relevés made between 1984 and 2020. The database contains the territories of 3 subjects of the Russian Federation (the Republic of Bashkortostan, Orenburg, Chelyabinsk regions) and 1 - the Republic of Kazakhstan (Aktobe region). For each relevés, a complete list of species with indication of abundance in points on the Braun-Blanquet scale. The main indicators (total cover, average height of the grass, etc.). For most descriptions, GPS coordinates and location are given. The ecological conditions were assessed with use of average values of E. Landolt scale. In the J. Braun-Blanquet classification system, all communities included in the database belong to nine vegetation classes (7 anthropogenic and 2 semi-natural), 75 associations and various types of communities. Geobotanical relevés with the dominance of such aggressive invasive species (Acer negundo, Ambrosia psylostachya, Echinocystis lobata, Elodea canadensis, Solidago canadensis, Heracleum sosnowskyi, Hordeum jubatum, Xanthium albinum etc.) are also included in the database.

Pristinity, degradation and replacement: The three dimensions of human impact on island vegetation

This paper presents three extreme examples of the potential consequences of human settlement on the vegetation of oceanic and continental islands. The Neotropical Pantepui continental archipelago of sky islands is an example of pristinity, due to the almost nonexistent human impact that results from the remoteness and inaccessibility of these islands as well as the lack of natural resources to exploit. Easter Island is used to illustrate total vegetation degradation by deforestation and the exhaustion of natural resources, which has transformed the island into badlands with no signs of recovery. The Azores Islands have been chosen to illustrate replacement as, after initial postsettlement deforestation and extractive practices, a further transformative phase consisting of creating an almost totally anthropogenic vegetation with mostly exotic species occurred. The paper describes in some detail the developments of each case and the historical context in which they took place using historical, archeological and paleoecological evidence. Many intermediate states are possible among these three extremes, which can be represented with a ternary diagram (the PDR diagram), which is useful for characterizing the state of each island or archipelago in terms of human impact on terrestrial ecosystems and informing conservation and restoration practices.

Anthropogenic Vegetation in the River Valley Amalat

The article presents the results of a research study of anthropogenic affects of gold mining on forest landscapes in Northern Transbaikalia, Russia and processes of natural reclamation of vegetation cover of the disturbed areas. The study area is located northwest of the Maliy Amalat River, which flows along the Vitim Plateau; in the floodplains of its two tributaries the Aunik River and the Bagdarin River. It is an area where a large number of alluvial gold deposits have been discovered. Some of these deposits are currently being developed, some have already been explored, and some have been abandoned. The authors consider the current state of vegetation cover in a key area of the Amalat River basin, near villages of Malovsky and Bagdarin. The problem of natural resources development and conservation is becoming extremely important for the area under study because open-pit gold mining methods that are used here drastically change the environment and affect water, land and forest resources.

Animals

Studies of animals in Southwest archaeology have been particularly successful in addressing the social-environmental context of human use of fauna. Two aspects of this topic form the focus of this chapter: understanding anthropogenic effects on landscapes, and human ritual engagement with animals. Studies of fauna and anthropogenic landscape change have centered on topics including garden hunting, anthropogenic vegetation changes, and human impacts on artiodactyls. Investigations of human ritual engagement with animals have primarily included analyses of room and site function (particularly examining ceremonial centers), studies of the emergence of new ritual regimes, and analyses focused on birds in religion. Emerging directions for Southwest zooarchaeology include synthetic analyses, archaeological chemistry, and variation in religious belief over time and space.

Bioindicator beetles and plants in desertified and eroded lands in Turkey

The xerophilous vegetation with characteristic insect assemblages is described in the main agricultural regions and native landscapes of Turkey. Long term intensive investigations documented vast biotic degradation of soil and vegetation (commonly referred to as desertification) by overgrazing, construction, recreation etc. Two main types of xeric landscape are under investigation: 1) natural highly specific deserts, semi-deserts, dry mountain slopes and screes; and 2) anthropogenic, newly emerged, floristically impoverished desertified areas. The presence of a multi-species insect assemblage on a xerophilous plant in certain area testifies its indigenous nature, whereas the absence of the specific consortium suggests recent plant invasion. The examples of the first case are the consortia of 3–6 species of Coleoptera, mainly Buprestidae, Chrysomelidae, and Curculionoidea, on some Apiaceae, Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Chenopodiaceae, Ephedraceae (Ephedra spp.) and Polygonaceae (Calligonum polygonoides L.). Extreme examples of anthropogenic vegetation are overgrazed wormwood steppe and semidesert which lack usually diversified coleopterous consortia, including the most characteristic of this landscape, e.g., tenebrionids, and orthopterans. Rapid disappearance of the xerophilous complexes from the extraordinarily diversified and largely uninventoried Turkish biota makes preservation of the endangered plant and animal assemblages in different climatic zones of Turkey an urgent task.