Occurrences of Threatened Species included in the Third Edition of the Red Data Book of the Komi Republic (Russia)

Study Extent

The dataset contains the occurrences of the species included in the Red Data Book of the Komi Republic [Degteva, 2019] and collected within the limits of the Komi Republic. The assessment of the species compliance with the criteria of natural rarity and population or range decline as a result of human impact was made based on data available in the scientific literature and data stored in the collection funds of herbaria and museums, and on the results of scientific research on biological diversity. In addition, known populations of rare species in the territory of the Komi Republic were monitored between 2009 and 2018, and information was received from local people when performing the surveys and through media materials. When classifying the rarity of a species, we used the criteria and categories of status adopted in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation [Danilov-Danilyan, 2001; Bardunov and Novikov, 2008].

Sampling

Information about the habitats of rare species was collected during field research. Particular attention was paid to the inventory of objects of the natural reserve fund and in the territories at which local populations of many species were concentrated and that were listed in the red data books of the Russian Federation and the Komi Republic [Degteva and Ponomarev, 2014]. Field studies were carried out mainly by the route method. The method of winter route counts was also used for vertebrates. The data were recorded in field journals together with geobotanical descriptions. For each occurrence, the coordinates were fixed using GPS navigators. All findings of rare species of plants and fungi were confirmed by herbarium collections, that were mainly stored in the herbarium (SYKO) of the Institute of Biology of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Findings of invertebrates were included in the collections of the scientific museum of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. P. leptodactylus was recorded in 2017 by local people in the River Serdyel (a mass media publication). To obtain additional information about rare bird species, surveys among game managers and local populations were carried out. Aerial surveys were used to monitor reindeer (R. tarandus) populations. To clarify the information on the distribution of rare species, we used the collections of the herbaria of the Komarov Botanical Institute RAS (LE), the Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences (SVER), the Central Siberian Botanical Garden SB RAS (NS), the Papanin Institute of Biology of Inland Waters (IBWI), the Lomonosov Moscow State University (MW), the Perm State National Research University (PERM), the Pechoro-Ilychskiy State Nature Reserve (PIR), the Botanical Museum of Uppsala University in Sweden (UPS), and the private collection of J. Hermansson, as well as the zoological collections stored in the museum of the Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University.

Quality Control

Species identification was made or checked by specialists on the corresponding taxon. The identification of 4215 occurrences (47 % of the dataset) of 359 species (76 % of the species included in the dataset) was supported by preserved specimens. The taxa names were normalized with help of the GBIF species matching tool (https://www.gbif.org/tools/species-lookup). The dataset was checked for errors and cleaned by methods described by R. Mesibov in A Data Cleaner's Cookbook [Mesibov, 2021]. The geo-referencing was checked by overlaying the occurrence points and the geographical map from the QGIS Geographic Information System [QGIS Development Team, 2021].

Method steps

1. The authors of this document prepared occurrence data (separate datasets for the taxonomic groups for which they were responsible) of rare species, not previously published in GBIF, with a common xlsx-template based on the occurrence template recommended by the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) (https://github.com/gbif/ipt/wiki/occurrenceData#templates). Authors were allowed to add Darwin Core terms as additional fields in their xlsx-files.
2. The draft checklist of the species included in third edition of Red Data Book of the Komi Republic was prepared with the help of the checklist template recommended by the IPT (https://github.com/gbif/ipt/wiki/occurrenceData#templates). This checklist was matched against the GBIF Backbone checklist using the "Species name matching" tool at gbif.org (https://www.gbif.org/tools/species-lookup) and sent out to the authors of this paper; they checked the information of those taxa for which they were responsible. Authors were allowed to add references in the “nameAccordingTo” field, especially in those cases in which they were using synonyms or names not listed in the GBIF Backbone. The field “taxonRemarks” was used to indicate the rarity status of each taxon.
3. The occurrence datasets prepared by the specialists were merged into a single dataset. The “taxonID” field was filled with values from the corresponding field from the checklist dataset. All additional fields used by the authors were included in the merged dataset. The values in the fields “decimalLongitude” and “decimalLatitute” were rounded to two decimal places and the “coordinateUncertaintyInMeters” field was set to a single value of 3000. Duplicated records, created after the coordinate generalization, were deleted from the dataset. The records that did not have any information in the “decimalLongitude,” “decimalLatitute,” and ”recordedBy” fields were also deleted from the dataset. Each record in the occurrence dataset also included a URL leading to the corresponding species’ description and images at the Red Data Book of the Komi Republic web page.
4. The information about lost habitats of rare lichens was added in the dataset at the “occurrenceStatus” field. The value “Absent” was entered for 1745 records (indicating that, approximately, only 20 % of the records are specified).

The dataset includes information on occurrences of 470 of 532 taxa included in the third edition of the Red Book of the Komi Republic (2019), including 1 Eubacteria species, 149 fungi species, (59 fungi and 85 lichens), 267 plant taxa (9 algae, 28 bryophytes and 230 vascular plants), 53 animal taxa (23 invertebrates, 5 fish, 1 amphibian, 20 birds and 4 mammals).

1. Bacteria
   rank: kingdom
2. Fungi
   rank: kingdom
3. Plantae
   rank: kingdom
4. Animalia
   rank: kingdom
5. Cyanobacteria
   rank: phylum
6. Ascomycota
   rank: phylum
7. Basidiomycota
   rank: phylum
8. Charophyta
   rank: phylum
9. Rhodophyta
   rank: phylum
10. Marchantiophyta
    rank: phylum
11. Bryophyta
    rank: phylum
12. Tracheophyta
    rank: phylum
13. Arthropoda
    rank: phylum
14. Chordata
    rank: phylum

The Komi Republic is located north-east of the Russian (East European) Plain and on the western macroslope of the northern part of the Ural Mountains (Fig. 1). The total area of the region is 416 800 km² (https://rkomi.ru/pages/48). The region landscapes are dominated by low-lying areas with elevation markers up to 200 m. Elevated areas of Ural Mountains and Timan Ridge cover about 20 % of the Komi Republic. The elevations of the highest mountains of the Northern, Subpolar, and Polar Urals are 1617, 1894, and 1500 m, respectively. Excessive humidity and, mainly, flat relief contribute to the development of mires, which occupy about 7.7 % of the region's territory [Panev, 1964; Stolpovskij, 1997; Degteva and Ponomarev, 2014]. The region has severe and continental climate with frequent invasion of arctic air masses from the Arctic Ocean. The climate is different in different parts of the Republic due to its large extension from North to South and from West to East (more than 1000 km in both directions) and to the high variety of relief forms (lowlands, uplands, and mountain systems). Most of the Republic is in the Atlantic-Arctic climatic zone with moderate cold (boreal) weather with long winter and short and cool summer seasons. Northward and in the Urals, the climate becomes arctic and subarctic. The north of the region lies in the permafrost area, where the average annual temperature ranges from –4 °С to –6 °С, rising to 0–1 °С in the south of the Republic. Annual precipitation is not higher than 400–450 mm in the north and 600 mm in the south. In montane areas, it can be up to 1000 mm [Taskaev, 1997]. The treeless bush tundra, formed by Betula nana L., and forest-tundra are dominant vegetation types in the north-east region. Most of the region is covered by taiga, mainly spruce forests dominated by Picea obovata Ledeb. In addition, pine forests (Pinus sylvestris L.) are widespread throughout the taiga, mainly on sandy terraces along riverbanks and peat soils on the edges of raised bogs. Spruce (P. obovata) and fir (Abies sibirica Ledeb.) stands and, rarely, cedar pine (Pinus sibirica Du Tour) forests are spread in the foothills of the Northern Urals. Larch (Larix sibirica Ledeb.) stands are common northward 64 N and at the Timan Ridge. On the western macroslope of the Urals, along the elevation gradient, vegetation forms several altitudinal belts, including mountain-forest with spruce, fir, and cedar pine, spruce, larch, and birch forests in the north, subalpine areas where mountain woodlands are combined with bushes, meadows, and fragments of mountain tundra, mountain tundra, and alpine belts. About 65 % of the landscapes of the territory of the Republic are relatively intact. In the foothills and mountains of the Northern and Subpolar Urals on the territory of the Pechora-Ilych Reserve and the Yugyd va National Park, the largest arrays of virgin forests of the European North have been preserved; they have been practically free from any human impact. In 1995, these protected areas were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as the "Virgin forests of Komi" [Degteva and Ponomarev, 2014]. This is the first site in Russia recognized by the UNESCO World Nature Heritage List, which protects 20 % of the undisturbed forests of Europe. In total, there are 233 NPAs covering approximately 5.44 mln ha (13 % of the region area) of the Komi Republic. NPAs are the key elements of the biodiversity conservation system in the region. Most of the species included in the Red Data Book of the Komi Republic may be found within the limits of NPAs, including 83 % of the vertebrates and 80.6 % of the invertebrates, 84.1 % of the vascular plants, 84.3 % of the mosses, 50 % of the algae, 94 % of lichens, and 88 % of the fungi (excluding lichens). The state of the rarest plant species populations at NPAs has been assessed as stable.