Structural-temporal organization of a rodent community in the Teletskaya Taiga,Altai Mountains

The structural-temporal organization of a murine rodent community in the taiga has been studied near Lake Teletskoe, Mountain Altai. The results show that the long-term dynamics of indices characterizing community diversity depend mainly on changes in the structure of dominance rather than on the population dynamics of species. The distribution of species in the factor space corresponds to their preference for certain biotopes, from dry to relatively moist. An analysis of relationships within the rodent community has revealed the synchronous dynamics of species abundance and antiphase pattern of changes in the structural indices of dominant species.     

Significance of rodent population dynamics for the formation of long-term community structure

Changes occurring with time in the structure of communities are evaluated and strategies of community functioning are described using the example of murine rodents from three areas of Western Siberia that differ in landscapes and geographical conditions. Many rodent species are common to all communities included in analysis. The populations of these species have different ranks in the dominance structure of communities, depending on the natural climatic conditions of the landscape, and differently influence the composition of communities and time course of changes in their structure.     

Ecological clusters as a tool of improving the environmental safety in developing countries

The article is devoted to the research of ecological clusters as a tool of improving the ecological safety in developing countries. The authors offer to use a specifically developed methodology for determining the level of ecological security in developing countries. Formation of a city skeleton on the basis of ecological clusters, generated on the basis of biologically active natural complex, is offered. We offer the methodology of introduction of the cluster organization of the city environment with introduction models on the example of the city of Volgograd of the Russian Federation.     

Role of genetic factors in landscape-geographic variation of the water vole (Arvicola terrestris L.)

The geographic variation of the water vole Arvicola terrestris L. has been analyzed with respect to two linear combinations of craniometric characters with the highest additive heritability (h ² = 0.59 and h ² = 0.52). The greatest differences have been revealed between the territorially close montane and piedmont populations. The lowland and montane populations have proved to differ to the smallest extent, despite their spatial and altitudinal separation. Selection under extreme conditions that leads to similar phenotypic results may be based on the common genetic background of these populations, irrespective of considerable distances between them and different environmental conditions in their habitats.     

Ecological assessment of murine rodent communities in the mountain forest belt of southern Central Siberia

The results of long-term studies on the fauna and ecology of murine rodents inhabiting the mountain forest belt of southern Central Siberia are considered. A comparative analysis of the composition and organization of rodent communities has been performed in 15 key plots located within three geographic-climatic facies: perhumid, humid, and semihumid. The species composition, dominance structure, and total abundance of these communities in each facies have significant distinctive features, despite the generally high similarity of the communities within the forest belt. Information indices have been used to determine parameters of the diversity and evenness of communities, which reflect their state and degree of resistance to various factors.     

Thiourea leaching of gold from processed municipal solid waste incineration residues

Incineration is one of the key technologies in disposal of municipal waste, which produces municipal solid waste incineration (MSWI) residues with high valuable metal contents. The recycling strategy for the MSWI residues is typically focused on the recovery of scrap metals yielding processed municipal solid waste incineration residues (PIR) as the main byproduct. However, the PIR still contains valuable metals, particularly gold, which cannot be extracted by conventional methods. Here, we evaluated the feasibility of using the 0.5–2.0 mm grain size fraction of PIR containing 28.82 ± 1.62 mg/kg of gold as raw material for a two-stage extraction process. In the first stage the alkalic fine-grained PIR was acidified with a solution of 20% (v/v) of HCl-containing flue gas cleaning liquid that is obtained by the municipal waste incineration plant itself as a waste product. In the second stage we leached the acidified fine-grained PIR by thiourea with Fe³⁺ as an oxidant. Application of the thiourea-Fe³⁺ leaching system resulted in recovery of 16.4 ± 1.56 mg/kg of gold from the fine-grained PIR within 6 h of incubation. Due to high gold market prices, upscaling of the suggested technology can represent a suitable strategy for gold recovery from PIR and other MSWI residues.