Occurrence of the birds of the Middle Volga Region (South-East of the European part of Russia).

Anastasia Klenina,Alexander Ruchin,Evgenii Bykov

doi:10.3897/bdj.9.e72075

Abstract

BackgroundBirds are the most numerous and widespread group of higher vertebrates. Due to the peculiarities of their biology, birds play an important role in nature and in human life.Ornithological studies described in this publication were conducted in seven regions of the Middle Volga Region (Chuvashia, Mordovia, Tatarstan, Samara, Nizhny Novgorod, Ulyanovsk and Penza Regions) from 1978 to 2021. Visual and acoustic methods were used to study the species composition during field studies. In total, 5065 birdoccurrences belonging to 157 species, 48 families and 19 orders were registered. All occurrences have a geographical reference. The large volume of data collected, the wide geographical coverage and the long-term nature of the observations determined the value of their inclusion in the GBIF and the need for publication in the Biodiversity Data Journal.New informationWe are publishing our original data on the coordinates of bird occurrences in the Middle Volga Region for the first time. Most of the original information about bird occurrences was contained in field diaries and was not available to a wide range of researchers. All 5065 occurrences are new to GBIF.

Highlights

Birds play an important role in natural complexes and in human life
They minimise outbreaks of harmful insects, regulate the number of rodents and dispersal of seeds of several plants (Raman 2001, Rey Benayas et al 2017, Carvalho et al 2020, Simonov and Matantseva 2020). They can serve as bioindicators for the state of the environment, since they respond to anthropogenic impact by changing the species composition of nesting avifauna and the number of various ecological groups (Bykov 2013, Lebedinskii et al 2019, Kuznetsova 2021)
The Red Book of the Russian Federation (Ministry of Nature Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation 2020) includes species caught in the Middle Volga Region: Otis tarda Linnaeus, 1758, Pandion haliaetus (Linnaeus, 1758), Buteo rufinus (Cretzschmar, 1829), Aquila nipalensis Hodgson, 1833, Aquila chrysaetos (Linnaeus, 1758), Aquila heliaca Savigny, 1809, Haliaeetus albicilla (Linnaeus, 1758), Falco cherrug J.E

Summary

Background

Due to the peculiarities of their biology, birds play an important role in nature and in human life. Visual and acoustic methods were used to study the species composition during field studies. The large volume of data collected, the wide geographical coverage and the long-term nature of the observations determined the value of their inclusion in the GBIF and the need for publication in the Biodiversity Data Journal. We are publishing our original data on the coordinates of bird occurrences in the Middle Volga Region for the first time. Most of the original information about bird occurrences was. Contained in field diaries and was not available to a wide range of researchers. All 5065 occurrences are new to GBIF

Introduction

Sampling methods