Small mammals in the biomonitoring system of protected areas (on the example of the Ishim District of the Tyumen Region)

Abstract

The article presents the results of the field studies of small mammals carried out from 1997 till 2017 on three specially protected natural areas of the Ishim District of the Tyumen Region (on the example of subzone of the northern forest-steppe). The method of synecology helped to analyze both the species and structural diversity and integral indices of the state of communities. The method of epigenetics aimed to show the stability of development in the populations of dominant species (on the example of Myodes rutilus and Sorex araneus). The article shows that the level of species diversity and stability of small mammalian communities is directly proportional to the area of specially protected natural areas and reversely proportional to the level of anthropogenic load on the habitat. High anthropogenic load is the reason of neutrals and anthropophiles disappearing from communities of small mammals. The index of dominance of Apodemus agrarius increases as well as the exoanthropic species. The author establishes that the information structure of all studied communities is that of poorly disturbed habitats of the forest-steppe zone of Western Siberia. The information structure of the small mammals community of the most protected areas (1108 hectares), experiencing minimal anthropogenic impact is consistently reproduced in the number of years. The analysis of small mammals community showed a low resource potential of a forest park with an area of 14,5 hectares, located in the center of the city. At the same time the integral indices of the fluctuating asymmetry of the nonmetric features of the skull in the investigated populations of M. rutilus and S. araneus indicate the stability of epigenetic processes and the good state of the land and air environment.