Ecological and habitat ranges of orchids in the northernmost regions of their distribution areas: A case study from Ural Mountains, Russia.

The Orchidaceae, which is one of the most interesting families of angiosperms, contains a large number of rare species. Despite their acknowledged importance, little attention has been paid to the study of orchids distributed in northern territories. In this study, we determined the syntaxonomical diversity and ecological parameters of orchid habitats in two of Europe's largest protected areas, the Pechoro-Ilychsky Reserve and the Yugyd Va National Park (northeastern European Russia), and then compared our findings to those in other parts of orchid distribution ranges. For this purpose, we studied 345 descriptions of plant communities (releves) containing species from Orchidaceae and defined habitat parameters using Ellenberg indicator values with the community weight mean approach, nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMS), and relative niche width. We found that orchids were distributed in eight habitat types and 97 plant associations. The largest number of orchid species is found in forest communities. Half of the orchid species under study occur in the mires and rock habitats with open vegetation. Several orchids consistently occur in areas disturbed by human activity. In addition, our study indicates that the main drivers of orchid distribution across the vegetation types are light and soil nitrogen. Our analysis of the ecological parameters of orchid habitats indicates that some orchid species can be classified as habitat specialists that are confined to a relatively narrow ecological niche in the Urals (e.g., Goodyera repens, Cypripedium guttatum and Dactylorhiza maculata). Several other species (e.g. Neottia cordata and Dactylorhiza fuchsia) grow under diverse ecological parameters.

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

BACKGROUND: The purpose of the data paper was to introduce into scientific literature the results of scientific work carried out for the third edition of the 'Red Data Book of the Komi Republic'. The article reflects methodological approaches to the formation of a list of rare and in need of protection species and describes the corresponding datasets published in GBIF. NEW INFORMATION: Information about 7,187 occurrences of 438 rare species and infraspecies included in the third edition of the 'Red Data Book of the Komi Republic' have been published.

Plant CSR types in the north: comparing the morphological and morpho-physiological approaches.

Grime's competition-stress-ruderal (CSR) theory is widely used to study plant species' responses to multiple environmental factors. We compared two models to allocate CSR types the global "StrateFy" model (Pierce et al. Funct Ecol, 31:444-457, 2017) and a locally developed morpho-physiological model (Novakovskiy et al. Int J Ecol, p e1323614, 2016). The "StrateFy" model is based on three morphological leaf traits: leaf area (LA), leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and specific leaf area (SLA). The morpho-physiological model additionally uses plant height (PH), leaf dry weight (LDW), photosynthetic capacity (PN) and respiration rate (RD), leaf nitrogen, and carbon concentration (LNC, LCC). We applied both models to 74 plant species, the traits of which were measured at mountain (Northern Urals) and plane (Komi Republic, Russia) landscapes of European Northeast. The comparison of the calculated C, S, and R scores showed two groups of species with large and unidirectional differences. The first group consists of species with a shift from S (morpho-physiological model) to CR (StrateFy model) strategy. Species of this group are typical for deep shaded habitats and characterized by low LDMC (10-25%) and high SLA (30-60 mm2 mg-1). The second group consists of C species (morpho-physiological model) which were classified as S (StrateFy model) strategy. This group includes mainly tall shrubs, graminoids, and forbs with relatively small leaves (300-2000 mm2). In our opinion, the CSR strategies obtained by the morpho-physiological model showed better agreement with the basic principles underlying Grime's theory. The use of a limited number of morphological traits (LA, LDMC, SLA) in the StrateFy model does not always allow to determine the life strategy correctly. For example, these traits are insufficient for a clear separation of deeply shaded stress-tolerant species and ruderals. On the other hand, the use of the morpho-physiological model requires a large number of field measurements, which makes it difficult to use this model to allocate CSR strategies for a large number of species. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s12298-021-00973-9.

Changes in mycorrhizal status and type in plant communities along altitudinal and ecological gradients-a case study from the Northern Urals (Russia).

The Ural Mountains (the Urals) are a mountain range on the border between the continents of Europe and Asia. The Urals extend about 2500 km from north to south and run from the coast of the Arctic Ocean to the steppe of northwestern Kazakhstan. In terms of mycorrhizal traits, the vegetation of the Urals has not been studied absolutely compared with the other mountain systems of Europe. Detailed research of vegetation at the Telpos-iz Ridge (Northern Urals, Russia) allowed us to analyze changes in mycorrhizal status (obligatory mycorrhizal, OM; facultative mycorrhizal, FM; non-mycorrhizal, NM) and type (arbuscular, AM; ectomycorrhiza, ECM; ericoid, ERM; ORM, orchid mycorrhiza; NM) both in the main vegetation types and the individual communities along the elevation and ecological gradients based on 165 releves. This is the first attempt to describe the mycorrhizal status of plant communities across different elevations and ecological conditions outside Europe and North America. OM species were most diverse in all vegetation types. Maximal share of NM species was found in the mires and may be explained by over logged and unfertile soils of these habitats. Arbuscular mycorrhizas dominated across all vegetation types except for mires, where specific ecological conditions result in the prevalence of ECM and NM species. We analyzed the mycorrhizal status and type of plant communities along the main ecological gradients and found a decisive role of elevation and soil nitrogen content. At the same time, it remains unclear which factor determines the distribution of ECM and AM communities which are most represented in the vegetation of the study area.