Том 99, № 6 (2019)

Temporal patterns and frequency spectra of the acoustic calling signals of males of Uvarovites inflatus and four species of the genus Gampsocleis occurring in Russia are described. Katydids of the tribe Gampsocleidini are shown to be capable of producing territorial sounds. Data on the structure of the sound apparatus in four Gampsocleis species are provided.

The data on the life-cycles of soil-dwelling Diptera which exhibit outbreaks are summarized. The main ecological parameters of the life-cycle of Diptera which may influence outbreaks are discussed: high fecundity of females, polyphagy of larvae, larval behavioral adaptations increasing their survival, tendency of adults toward synchronous emergence, and the ability of species to inhabit anthropogenic landscapes. It is shown that the potential ability of Diptera to exhibit outbreaks has natural mechanisms. Natural hazards like abrupt weather changes in the direction favorable for Diptera as well as anthropogenic influence may be additional factors provoking an outbreak.

Altogether, 59 ant species from 22 genera of 4 subfamilies have been recorded in Kyiv. Four of them are occasionally introduced species which occur only in premises heated in winter; 19 species are recorded here for the first time for the city. The richness of the myrmecofauna in Kyiv is determined by its position at the boundary of Polesie and Forest-Steppe and by the variety of coenoses within the city. The Kiev myrmecofauna is derived from the zonal faunas of Polesie and Forest-Steppe combined with the azonal southern elements that have penetrated far northwards along the Dnieper valley. The ant species in Kyiv are assigned to 10 zoogeographic complexes; more than half of them have Trans-Palaearctic and Euro-Caucasian distribution. Mesophilic and mesoxerophilic oligotopes predominate in the fauna. The Kyiv ants belong to five chorological complexes: vertical herpetobiont, horizontal herpetobiont, multilevel, soil-litter, and horizontal dendrobiont. The number of ant species in the coniferous and deciduous forests and in the city parks is approximately the same (25–27). The species diversity is lower in meadows, steppe areas, and public gardens (11–16 species), and the lowest (only 4 species) in the streets. The total number of ant species is high not only on the outskirts but also in the central parts of the city due to the presence of forest parks. Four types of multispecies ant assemblages can be distinguished in Kyiv: mono- and bidominant continua of weakly territorial dominants, monodominant assemblages with a territorial dominant, monodominant assemblages with a weakly territorial dominant, and degraded monospecies assemblages without dominants. The state of the population of the invasive species Lasius neglectus, discovered in the center of Kyiv in the summer of 2018, is briefly reviewed and the possibility of its further expansion is considered.

The modern distribution of the Western Eurasian subboreal butterfly Coenonympha leander (Esper, 1784) was studied in the Urals region, with its northeastern range limits specified at 56°N and 65°E. There are isolated local C. leander populations in the forest-steppe, while in the steppe zone the species is distributed fairly uniformly. In the Ural steppes the species is tolerant to moderate anthropogenic transformation of natural communities; the species is not rare and cannot serve as an indicator of intact communities, as opposed to other parts of its range. The geographic variations in the wing length and also the diameters and frequency of eyespots in the wing pattern are analyzed. The highest morphological specificity was detected in the marginal outpost populations, especially the northernmost population of Nizhnee Tukbaevo in Bashkortostan, which lives under the unique conditions of the azonal Mesyagutovo forest-steppe and tends to form a cline, with the wing size decreasing and the eyespot diameters and frequency increasing from north to south.

The study presents the results of long-term (2006-2014) research on the non-biting midges (Diptera, Chironomidae) in macrozoobenthic communities of five saline rivers (the Khara, the Lantsug, the Bolshaya Samoroda, the Chernavka, and the Solyanka) flow into hypersaline Lake Elton (Volgograd Province). The rivers have a high mineralization gradient from 4 to 41.4 g/L and diff er in size as well as in the spatial dynamics of hydrological-hydrochemical and hydrophysical parameters. In the mouth reaches, water mineralization in these rivers may exceed 100 g/L. In total, 25 chironomid taxa have been identified, 10 of which were typical of the Solyanka River and Chernavka River where salinity was above 20 g/L. In diff erent years, Chironomus aprilinus Meigen 1838, Ch. salinarius Kieff er, 1915, and Cricotopus salinophilus Zinchenko, Makarchenko et Makarchenko, 2009 were dominant in the Solyanka and Chernavka rivers and so was Tanytarsus kharaensis Zorina et Zinchenko, 2009 in the Khara and Bolshaya Samoroda. The chironomids of the benthic communities of saline rivers are represented by eurybiontic halo-tolerant species. Their distribution and abundance are linked to a complex of hydrological-hydrochemical factors, e.g., the level of overgrowth, water temperature, pH, soil particle size, etc. The chironomid diversity is strongly correlated with mineralization, although there is no clear relationship between chironomid abundance or biomass and mineralization between 6 and 41.4 g/L. The seasonal dynamics of abundance and biomass of chironomid larvae is characterized by spatial heterogeneity due to features of the life cycles of the most numerous multivoltine chironomids.

Harpalus hospes Sturm, 1818 is a predominantly Eastern Mediterranean species with three parapatric subspecies connected by the populations with intermediate characteristics in the intergradation zones. The nominotypical subspecies ranges over Central and Southeastern Europe up to the Middle and Lower Volga areas and also occurs in Anatolia. In eastern Anatolia, it is replaced by the subspecies H. h. armenus (Daniel, 1904), which is also distributed in Transcaucasia. In the plains of the North Caucasus and the Volga region, the nominotypical subspecies is replaced by H. h. ciscaucasicus Lutshnik, 1921 with a wide intergradation zone. The geographical range of the latter subspecies is widely disjunctive and consists of two parts separated by the distance of about 2.5 thousand kilometers: one in the plains of the North Caucasus (Krasnodar and Stavropol territories, northern Daghestan), and the other, in the Russian Altai (Ob River valley) and Eastern Kazakhstan (Tayzhuzgen River valley). Previously this subspecies was considered as endemic to the North Caucasus, since a single record from Eastern Kazakhstan (Tayzhuzgen River valley) was a female collected there in 1946 and not assigned to a subspecies. New findings in the Tayzhuzgen and Ob valleys confirmed the constantness of this eastern isolate and revealed its formal belonging to H. h. ciscaucasicus since the males from this area possess all the distinctive features of this subspecies. The causes of this disjunction are not clear but seem to be connected with dramatic changes of the climate during Pleistocene-Holocene. The lectotypes of Harpalus sturmii Dejean, 1829 and H. h. ciscaucasicus Lutshnik, 1921 are designated.