Botanical Journal

In 2024, we conducted a study of a preserved intact area of blueberry-mossy spruce forests in the Padoma River basin of the Arkhangelsk Region. The forest area is located on the border of the Vekhnetoyemsky and Ustyansky municipal districts of the Arkhangelsk Region, in the middle taiga subzone. The aim of the work was to identify possible impact of climate warming on the structure and dynamics of the spruce forests of the middle taiga. The study concluded that, despite the climatic changes, the surveyed spruce forest in the Padoma River basin remains in a relatively stable state. Renewal in the spruce forests continues to be supported by small gaps, with no major disturbances, and no massive bark-beetle drying-up of spruce has been noted. The nemoralization of the herb-subshrub layer and the appearance of broad-leaved treespecies in the composition of the forest phytocenoses of the surveyed massif has not yet occurred. The average radial growths of the spruce trees over a 200-year period have no significant differences, they depend primarily on intra-phytocenotic conditions, and climatic influence is not decisive. The natural stability of the surveyed spruce massif with an area of about 18 km2 is determined by the mosaic structure of the stand as a whole, consisting of forest areas at different stages of dynamics, from gaps in the canopy with a large number of promising spruce undergrowth, to stands of different ages with an age of spruce up to 300 years. The paper provides a justification for the environmental value of the surveyed spruce forest and recommendations for the establishment of a protected area.

The analysis of living and herbarium material collected by the authors in June 2024 on Moneron Island has revealed 23 species of marine macrophytes previously unknown to the island's flora. Species identification has been clarified for two red algae (Devaleraea mollis, Schizymenia tamarae). New data on distribution are provided for the brown alga Microzonia japonica. An annotated list of all species discovered is given.

The most important property of vegetation is its role as the main environment-forming factor in an ecosystem. Island landscapes are similar to northern taiga zonal complexes and are characterized by insufficiently intense self-regulation of soil and vegetation cover. It is noted that previous forest management has led to changes in the composition and structure of primary forests. Disturbance or complete destruction of spruce and larch forests in the basins of the Lebyazhya and Bolshaya Anaura rivers proved unsupported by natural regeneration. A long recovery period and low growth rates under climatic conditions of the Sea of Okhotsk have contributed to the fact that there was no restoration of dark coniferous forest-forming species in deforested areas. The forest with its set of ecological functions has not been restored. It is recommended to organize monitoring of the state of the ecological functions of vegetation in the Shantar Islands National Park.

Based on the results of a primary revision of the collections, as well as an analysis of published and archival sources, data on the history of formation and volume of the herbarium collection at Omsk State Agrarian University have been summarized. The revision allowed to gain information on one species new to Western Siberia (Carex physodes), two new species (Primula macrocalyx and Rubia tatarica) and ten poorly studied species for the Omsk Region.

The All-Russian scientific conference with international participation “Ecological Consequences of War: Polemochores in the Landscapes of Eastern Europe”, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of victory in the Great Patriotic War, was held in Tver on March 20–22, 2025. It was organized by Tver State University. The conference participants discussed various problems of biology and ecology of polemochores, landscape transformation, history and patriotic education.