UDC 599.322.2; 591.526

Soroka О.V. SPATIAL STRUCTURE OF STEPPE MARMOT POPULATIONS UNDER PROTECTION REGIME IN THE SOUTHERN CIS-URALS // Arid Ecosystems. 2023. Vol. 29. № 3 (96). P. 92-99. | PDF

The article presents data on the distribution of the steppe marmot (Marmota bobak Müll, 1776), on the Burtinskaya Steppe Site of the Orenburg State Nature Reserve (Orenburg region, Belyaevsky district), from its organization to the present. The research was carried out by the author in 1998-2001 and 2021-2022, information on the accounting of the number of steppe marmots from the archive of the reserve was also used. Mapping of all residential colonies of the steppe marmot and families in them was carried out, the areas of family plots were calculated. Statistical processing of the observation results was carried out using the computer program STATISNICA 10.0.1011. The spatial structure of the population, formed even before the organization of the reserve, has been preserved with minor changes for more than 30 years. In the first years (1989-1990), there were eight relatively small settlements on the territory of the site. Since 1996, 10 colonies have been allocated, and in 1999 75 residential family plots were marked on them. By 2003, the territories of the colonies were fully developed, marmots occupied old, abandoned burrows within the allocated colonies, the number of families on the site increased to 106. Over the next nine years, the number of families remained stable, after which their number began to decline: by 2017, only 55 families remained residential. Currently, there is a gradual increase in the number of families in the Burtinskaya Steppe Site; according to the mapping results, 74 families were marked in 2022.

Keywords: steppe marmot, Burtinskaya Steppe Site, Orenburg State Nature Reserve, spatial structure, colony, family, family plot.

Financing. The work was carried out for the state task No. AAAAA-A21-121011190016-1 of the Steppe Institute of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences “Problems of Steppe Nature Management in the Context of Modern Challenges: Optimization of the Interaction of Natural and Socio-Economic Systems”.

DOI: 10.24412/1993-3916-2023-3-92-99

EDN: JRHAFA