ECOLOGICAL–LANDSCAPE CHARACTERISTICS OF PROTECTIVE FORESTS ON THE SOUTH-EASTERN SHORE OF LAKE ONEGO

Abstract

Data representing the natural characteristics, present-day condition and consequences of the anthropogenic transformation (based on comparison with archival forest inventory data) of forests in the south-eastern part of the shore are reported. The area in question spans some 30 km from the Vodla River mouth to Lake Muromskoye, including near-shore islands. The material was gathered by analyzing available archival data, as well as during transect surveys of shore landscape characteristics and from forest cover descriptions made for 22 model sites in 2018. This activity was part of a project for the study of petroglyph-bearing sites. All of the south-eastern shore lies within a lacustrine and glaciolacustrine moderately paludified flatland landscape dominated by spruce habitats. It is one of the most widespread types of geographical landscape in the middle and southern taiga subzones in the west of European Russia. In the Karelian middle taiga alone it is represented by six contours encompassing in total more than 600,000 ha. As the lake was regressing, ecosites with bedrock outcrops, rather atypical of this landscape, locally formed along the shoreline. In all, 4 types of shoreline were distinguished: rocky, rocky-sandy, bouldery, floodplain. They alternate in different combinations and define the structure of the forests directly adjacent to the south-eastern part of the lake (the spectrum of forest types, their ratios, spatial arrangement, stand composition, etc.). The most typical topographic ecological series of forest types within shore ecosites were identified and described. The vulnerability of the ecosystems to natural and human impacts (soil cover erosion, fires, windthrow, recreation) was assessed. The present-day situation was assessed with view to identifying protective and protected forest categories.