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Fires – one of the most important factors in catastrophic transformation of natural forest cover. Destroying whole ecosystems, fires, at the same time, start long-term succession processes. The study of the causes of fires makes a significant contribution to understanding structural and functional organization and dynamics of modern forests. The article examines the impact of availability of the territory and landscape-topographical features on the distribution and size of burnt areas formed in the last 150 years, in the foothill area of Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve. The peculiarity of the territory is a complete lack of roads; the only roads are the rivers: Pechora, Ilych and their major tributaries. Analysis of the location of burned areas showed that significant influence on the occurrence of fire is provided by proximity of navigable rivers, since the greatest number of fires during studied period occurred at a distance of up to 3 km from navigable rivers, along which local population actively explores the territory (building of hunting shacks, gathering pine nuts, selective logging, etc.). Size of the fire is connected with proximity to navigable rivers: the largest fires is confined to the river banks and are likely to be only of anthropogenic origin. Small fires occurred at different distances from navigable rivers, could be both natural and anthropogenic ones. Settlements that existed before the formation of reserve had substantial and statistically significant effect on the occurrence of fire. Statistically significant associations of burnt areas with absolute altitude (the vast majority of burned areas are located on surfaces below 400 m) indirectly confirms that fires occurred at intensively developed parts of forests along the rivers.
Fires – one of the most important factors in catastrophic transformation of natural forest cover. Destroying whole ecosystems, fires, at the same time, start long-term succession processes. The study of the causes of fires makes a significant contribution to understanding structural and functional organization and dynamics of modern forests. The article examines the impact of availability of the territory and landscape-topographical features on the distribution and size of burnt areas formed in the last 150 years, in the foothill area of Pechora-Ilych Nature Reserve. The peculiarity of the territory is a complete lack of roads; the only roads are the rivers: Pechora, Ilych and their major tributaries. Analysis of the location of burned areas showed that significant influence on the occurrence of fire is provided by proximity of navigable rivers, since the greatest number of fires during studied period occurred at a distance of up to 3 km from navigable rivers, along which local population actively explores the territory (building of hunting shacks, gathering pine nuts, selective logging, etc.). Size of the fire is connected with proximity to navigable rivers: the largest fires is confined to the river banks and are likely to be only of anthropogenic origin. Small fires occurred at different distances from navigable rivers, could be both natural and anthropogenic ones. Settlements that existed before the formation of reserve had substantial and statistically significant effect on the occurrence of fire. Statistically significant associations of burnt areas with absolute altitude (the vast majority of burned areas are located on surfaces below 400 m) indirectly confirms that fires occurred at intensively developed parts of forests along the rivers.
The paper provides a brief analysis of well-known works containing evidence of carbon accumulation in old-growth forests. The analysis of the current state of the problem allows us to conclude that old-growth forests continue to accumulate carbon. A map of old-growth forests in Russia, identified on the basis of tree age higher than 200 years, using remote sensing data, is presented, and estimates of carbon pools in these forests are discussed. According to the estimates obtained, the area of old-growth forests in Russia was 163 mln ha as of 2021, and carbon stocks in phytomass reached 7.33 bln t, with the contribution of larch forests and larch woodlands of 86%. It is shown that the most important cause of uncertainties in the estimates of carbon cycles in old-growth forests is the uncertainty of the concept of “old-growth forests.” The mosaic structure of forests, that is, the high horizontal structural diversity, contributes to the accumulation of nitrogen and carbon in soils due to the creation of functioning conditions for various plant species, including light-loving ones, and, accordingly, due to the presence of litter of different quality, which is important for soil biota. Old-growth mosaic forests in Moskvoretsko-Oka Plain accumulated more nitrogen and carbon in soils than forests at an earlier stage of succession with a low mosaicity (in average 80 t/ha versus 60 t/ha in the 30-cm layer). The old-growth fir-beech dead-cover forests of the Northwestern Caucasus, whose tree stand is characterized by the highest productivity in Russia and Europe and high carbon reserves in the tree stand, are characterized by low carbon stock in soils compared to forests at an earlier stage of development (in average 58 t/ha versus 99 t/ha in 30-cm layer). This is due to the low quality of beech and fir litter and the absence of a pronounced window mosaic, which prevents the colonization of light-loving plant species, including with a high quality of litter. It is shown that, along with microorganisms, it is necessary to take into account such agents of decomposition, mineralization and humification as earthworms, which play a key role in carbon cycles. Carbon stock in the litter of northern taiga spruce forests is an order of magnitude higher than in coniferous-broad-leaved forests; in the litter and in the mineral layer of 0–30 cm, the carbon reserves under the crowns of spruce trees for about 200 years turned out to be significantly higher than in the spaces between the crowns, exceeding 80 t/ha.
The article provides analysis of “noise” as a means of competition in the interactions of individuals or populations, based on the idea of communication (intraspecific) as the most specialized form of competition for a social resource. There are signs-intermediaries and information exchange; hence, the winner is not the one who is stronger or more successful in “hitting” the opponent or otherwise influencing them, but who adequately rearranges the behavioral model based on the signal information and better predicts how to confront the partner in the next step of the process. When transferring the idea of communication as a competitive communication, mediated by information exchange, in the area of competitive interactions of the species itself, it turns out that there are the same mediators in the form of specialized feeding methods and / or territorial exploitation strategies, the deployment of which “takes information into account” from the habitat structure on the signal features of the latter, etc.That is, even ordinary operational competition may be to some extent information interaction. Naturally, the winner is the species, whose population better maintains the stability of relations in the presence of disturbances associated with “eating away” a part of resources by competitors from other species moving along the same “lace” of habitats. Often they consume a resource less efficiently than the above mentioned species, since less specialized, but create a “noise” disorienting it. Predictable consumption of a resource in the territories of a specialist species forms a signal field that facilitates each of its individuals to “build” the tactics of collecting food “for tomorrow”, and the unpredictable consumption of a close species-generalist “confuses”.
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