Abstract

Agricultural landscapes are the most common class of anthropogenic landscapes. In the structure of agricultural landscapes, there are subclasses of field, garden and meadow-pasture landscapes, which collectively make up to 80% of the area of the study area. To establish the influence of agricultural landscapes on the territorial distribution of zoocenoses of terrestrial vertebrates within Middle Transnistria. In the research process, landscape science, ecological and biogeocenotic approaches and principles of complexity and systematicity, natural-anthropogenic coexistence, constructivism, etc. were applied. The study of zoocenoses of anthropogenic landscapes was based on a system of general scientific and specific scientific methods: observation, analysis and synthesis, induction and deduction, comparison and analogy, abstraction and generalization, and the bibliographic method were also used. Records of terrestrial vertebrates, and capture of amphibians, reptiles and small mammals were carried out by faunal methods, taking into account the specifics of individual groups of animals. The share of field landscapes corresponds to an average of 65%, of which the main part is located on watersheds and floodplain terraces. It was found that the zoocenotic composition of field landscapes is relatively impoverished, but the growth of zoodiversity is provided by “migrant animals” and animals that use fields to find food. Garden landscapes of Middle Transnistria occupy up to 5 %. The timeliness of certain groups of terrestrial vertebrates to garden landscapes was studied, a significant part of which belongs to dendrophilous species of birds and mammals. The reduction of anthropogenic load (compared to field landscapes) affected the growth of the species composition of all settled animal species, as well as nesting birds in garden landscapes. It was determined that meadow-pasture landscapes of Middle Transnistria occupy an average of about 9.5 % and are localized, as a rule, on the slopes of river valleys. In separate areas, they enter the plakors and river floodplains. A wider range of terrain types (increasing the number of ecological niches) influenced the growth of the overall species diversity of animals of this subclass of agricultural landscapes. We consider the need for systematic monitoring of zoocenoses in different classes of anthropogenic landscapes to be a generalization of our research. This will make it possible to trace their dynamics and form scientifically based recommendations regarding the protection and rational use of local areas of animal concentration.

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