The survey of living conditions in the Arctic (SLiCA): A comparative sustainable livelihoods assessment

The Arctic is a region of the world experiencing extremely rapid climatic and social change. Indigenous communities have faced similar challenges for millennia and have historically demonstrated remarkable resilience to socioecological perturbations. In contemporary contexts, however, it appears that the pace and extent of change is overwhelming the adaptive capacities of many indigenous communities. Scholars recently completed a survey of living conditions spanning the circumpolar Arctic to quantitatively document the impacts of social and ecological stress across regions. The database they created is called the Survey of Living Conditions in the Arctic or SLiCA. This article explores the utility of using this dataset to compare livelihood systems across three sub-regions of Alaska and four sub-regions within the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug of the Russian Federation. The results point out that livelihood systems in Chukotka have a substantially lower level of sustainability than in Northwest Alaska due to the high prevalence of vulnerable households.     

Intensification level of rice farming in Myanmar: implication for its sustainable development

This study aims to estimate the intensification of rice farming in Myanmar particularly due to chemical fertilizer application, using farm-level data obtained from field surveys conducted in the 2000s. Relatively high-input rice farming was found in dry season crop in the delta zone and the double crop in well-irrigated lowlands of the central dry zone. The chemical fertilizer used there was about 88–159 kg NPK (nitrogen, N; phosphate, P₂O₅; and potash, K₂O) ha⁻¹ (76–110 kg nitrogen (N) ha⁻¹), and the average paddy yield ranged from 2.8 to 3.5 ton ha⁻¹. On the other hand, nutrient input in survey sites of rain-fed lowland was between 11 and 53 kg NPK ha⁻¹ (5 and 36 kg N ha⁻¹), and the yield ranged from 1.1 to 2.3 ton ha⁻¹. The national average of paddy yield and nutrient input of fertilizer was roughly estimated to be around 2.4 ton ha⁻¹ and 60 kg NPK ha⁻¹, respectively. A gap was observed between these calculated values and the official statistics. A comparison of fertilizer use efficiency for rice production in Myanmar with that in China and Vietnam has shown that the efficiency in Myanmar has not declined to an inappropriate level even in its intensive ones. Rice production in Myanmar has room for increasing the yield by capital intensification. Nevertheless, considering its sustainability as well as productivity, further intensification in rice farming technology in irrigated lowlands of Myanmar may neither be the best nor the only way.     

Noninvasive molecular genetic analysis in studying the ecology of the snow leopard: Problems and prospects

Molecular genetic methods were used to perform the species and individual identification of 117 samples of hair and feces of carnivores collected in natural habitats. The species were identified for 85.5% of the samples. The analysis of the nucleotide sequences of the cytochrome b mitochondrial gene was used to identify the samples of hair and feces of snow leopards (Uncia uncia, 40%), red foxes (Vulpes vulpes, 48%), wolves (Canis lupus, 6%), and lynx (Lynx lynx, 5%). The analysis of eight microsatellite loci allowed the genotypes of 13 snow leopards to be described. The sex of 11 animals was identified.     

Forest-ecological consequences of fires in light conifer forests of Transbaikalia

Consideration is given to the results of studies on the postfire dynamics of Transbaikal forests, which are formed under conditions of highly arid climate and extreme pyrological regime. Data are presented on tree die-off and recruitment in naturally burned forests and in test stands affected by creeping fires differing in intensity. The hydrothermal regime of soils, precipitation runoff, and its multifactor models are discussed. It is shown that fires aggravate moisture deficiency on mountain slopes, impair the productivity of tree stands, and cause their digression. The statistics of forest fires and the risk of lightning fires are analyzed.     

The state of predatory mammal populations in the impact zone of the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant as inferred from their phene pool

The states of the populations of five dominant species of predatory mammals living in the area affected by the Kalinin Nuclear Power Plant (NPP) and in remote districts of Tver’ oblast have been compared. A total of 1120 skulls, including 708 skulls from the vicinity of the NPP, have been examined. The data on parameters characterizing similarities between the samples, the degree and structure of intrapopulation diversity, and ontogenetic stability suggest with a high probability that the Kalinin NPP has no effect on wild populations of predatory mammals.     

Soil and biodiversity

It is shown that the soil diversity-biodiversity system in terrestrial ecosystems operates in spatiotemporal unity, which manifests itself at different hierarchical levels of their structural-functional organization: successional-evolutionary, zonal geographic, landscape, biogeocenotic, soil-type, horizon-layer, geochemical, and the levels of elementary soil processes and soil fertility. Arguments confirming the functional relationship between organisms and soils are considered. Effective biodiversity conservation is possible on the basis of an ecosystems approach involving simultaneous conservation of soil diversity.     

Autocenosis and democenosis as individual- and population-level ecological categories in terms of symbiogenesis and systems approach

According to the basic concept of the theory dealt with in this study, autocenosis, i.e., a self-regulatory host-symbiont system, rather than an individual, is the individual-level unit. Then, democenosis, which is a system of autocenoses, corresponds to the population level. Therefore, natural selection of autocenoses rather than individuals occurs in a democenosis, and auto- and democenoses, rather than “individuals” and “populations,” are components of food chains and webs. However, the symbiotic approach does not exclude the population paradigm and will be developed in parallel with it.     

Radial increment of larch and pine in central Yakutia as dependent on climate change over the past 120 years

The results of studies on the radial increment of larch and pine in central Yakutia are presented. The application of dendroclimatological methods to the study of tree-ring chronologies has made it possible to evaluate tree growth response to the dynamics of climatic factors over the past 120 years. The results of analysis of radial tree increment show that the onset of the growing season has shifted to earlier dates by the end of the 20th century.     

Interaction of ant species in associations: An attempt to formalize behavioral characters

Behavioral adaptations of ant species were studied in associations of different biotopes in the Crimean Mountains. The pattern of an association was found to depend on the mode of the territorial behavior of dominant species, irrespective of their number. The dominance hierarchy was more strict in monodominant than in bidominant associations. Ant species demonstrated different behavioral strategies, plasticity of foraging, and avoidance of aggressive encounters. A method for formalizing interspecies relationships and a model describing stochastic properties of the biological system are proposed, which can be useful in solving various ethological and ecological problems.