Formation of recent ranges of mammals in the Urals during the Holocene

Abstract

The dynamics and formation of mammal ranges in the Urals during the Holocene are described on the basis of the data on the subfossil faunas from numerous locations. Four types of ranges are distinguished: constant, declining, expanding, and fluctuating. Constant ranges were characteristic of species with different habitat preferences, namely, taiga, wetland, and eurytopic species. The ranges of species connected with the tundra and steppe associations shifted northward and southward, respectively. The ranges of forest and forest-steppe species that had spread to the Urals from the Russian Plain and Western Siberia proved to expand during the Holocene. The group with fluctuating ranges included species with different ecological features. In most species, the recent boundaries of their ranges in the Urals were formed in the Early Holocene or at the beginning of the Late Holocene under the effect of change in the dominant landscape types.