Spatiotypological Structure and Organization of Communities of Amphibians and Reptiles on the Cis-Altai Plain

Alexander Vladimirovich Makarov, Elena Bochkareva, Zarina Mukhtarovna Sergazinova

2022

Closed access Metadata (CSL-JSON)
DOI 10.1134/s1062359022090205
Data confidence 70 medium
How this score is calculated

It is built from checkable properties of the record itself: whether the article has a DOI, how many independent sources confirmed its data, whether the required fields are filled in, and how recent the latest confirmation is. Disagreement between sources and a missing identifier lower it. A value of 80 or above means the record was published without further checking; 60 to 79 means it is published at reduced confidence, with a manual check advisable. A record verified by an editor by hand is never pushed below 90 by a recalculation. This scores our data about the article, not the article itself.

Abstract

Abstract Spatial changes in the population density and species diversity of amphibians and reptiles are described on the basis of material collected in 1998, 2002, and 2014–2016. The spatial and typological structures of their populations were identified and analyzed, and the strength of the connection between the heterogeneity of their communities and the main structure-forming factors of the environment was assessed. Three species of amphibians have been identified on the territory of the cis-Altai Plain during the research, common toad (Bufo bufo (Linnaeus 1758)), moor frog (Rana arvalis Nilsson 1842), and lake frog (Pelophilax ridibundus (Pallas 1771)), as well as four species of reptiles, sand lizard (Lacerta agilis Linnaeus 1758), viviparous lizard (Zootoca vivipara Jacquin 1787), common snake (Natrix natrix (Linnaeus 1758)), and common viper (Vipera berus (Linnaeus 1758)). The moor frog absolutely predominates in the population of amphibians (93%), the share of the common toad and lake frog is significantly lower, and the sand and viviparous lizards predominate in the communities of reptiles (48 and 46%). It is shown that amphibians and reptiles are unevenly distributed over the territory, and their greatest abundance and species diversity are typical for the forest–steppe part of the cis-Altai Plain. With an increase in the area of steppe and plowed landscapes and a decrease in the proportion of forests in the central and western parts of the cis-Altai Plain, the locality of their distribution over the territory increases. The population density of amphibians, taking into account the underyearlings, reaches the highest values near the breeding water bodies and does not depend on the landscape specifics of the environment. Excluding underyearlings, the highest total abundance of amphibians is characteristic of lowland bogs, floodplain habitats, and relatively moist small-leaved forests. The majority of reptiles live in forested habitats, while the highest abundance rates are typical for small-leaved and humid birch–pine forests and significantly lower for other habitats. The spatial heterogeneity of the amphibian population is determined, first of all, by differences in the moisture content and food supply of habitats, and anthropogenic transformation of the environment in the form of grazing, which leads to trampling of the vegetation cover and compaction of the topsoil, the degree of afforestation, and the composition of forest-forming species, moisture, and food supply have a significant impact on reptiles.