South-Siberian mountain mires: Perspectives on a potentially vulnerable remote source of biodiversity

Abstract

Changes in climate, land-use and pollution are having disproportionate impacts on ecosystems and biodiversity of arctic and mountain ecosystems. While these impacts are well-documented for many areas of the Arctic and alpine regions, some isolated and inaccessible mountain areas are poorly studied. Furthermore, even in well-studied regions, assessments of biodiversity and species responses to environmental change are biased towards vascular plants and cryptogams, particularly bryophytes are far less represented. This paper aims to document the environments of the remote and inaccessible Altai-Sayan mountain mires and particularly their bryofloras where threatened species exist and species new to the regional flora are still being found. As these mountain mires are relatively inaccessible, changes in drivers of change and their ecosystem and biodiversity impacts have not been monitored. However, the remoteness of the mires has so far protected them and their species. In this study, we describe the mires, their bryophyte species and the expected impacts of environmental stressors to bring attention to the urgency of documenting change and conserving these pristine ecosystems.Keywords Biodiversity Á Bryophytes Á Climate change Á Mountain mires Á Siberia In memory of Emelian Muldiyarov, Siberian bryologist, mire scientist, teacher and friend.

Siberian environmental change: Synthesis of recent studies and opportunities for networking

“…measurement and modelling (Anisimov and Zimov 2021) and remote sensing (Minayeva et al 2021). Long-term data collection and observations by researchers local to Siberia (Kirpotin et al 2021a), often with expertise in specific taxonomic groups that are rare globally (Volkova et al 2021), have provided invaluable datasets previously archived only locally. Indigenous Knowledge has also provided insights into neglected processes occurring in remote regions (Lavrillier and Gabichev 2021).…”

“…Thawing permafrost in Siberia has many impacts including changing landforms and hydrology, destabilising surfaces leading to infrastructure damage, releasing ancient carbon via greenhouse gases (Anisimov and Zimov 2021) and releasing archaeological artefacts formerly preserved in frozen peat. Thawing permafrost also releases microorganisms, some of which are harmful and others about which little is known (Legendre et al 2014;Shmakova et al 2021), and it also affects other types of biodiversity such as that of rare mountain mires (Volkova et al 2021). Permafrost is used by local people to store food (Andronov et al 2021), and thaw could affect this traditional food storage system.…”

“…While many researchers are developing methods to classify bryophytes into functional groups for studying ecosystem-level processes because of difficulty of identification in the field (Lett et al 2021, Siberian researchers focus on detailed species-level identifications (e.g. Volkova et al 2021) which adds to the understanding of baseline biodiversity and current dynamics. However, many remote and inaccessible regions exist in Siberia and these are under-studied.…”

“…Anthrax pathogens have emerged in Yakutia (Revich and Podolnaya 2011) and unfortunately have killed people in the Yamal-Nenets Autonomous Okrug (Popova et al 2016; The Barents Observer 14 ). Biodiversity is changing throughout Siberia (Kharuk et al 2021;Kirpotin et al 2021a;Volkova et al 2021) in response to various drivers, including climate change, land use, and release of land by glacier retreat. Simplistically, space-for-time analogues suggest that tundra would become taiga, taiga would become steppes, and steppes would become semi-desert (Fig.…”

“…• Societal issues such as the sustainability of Arctic cities (Orttung et al 2021), changing diet and health of Indigenous People (Andronov et al 2021), varying perceptions of climate change (Rakhmanova et al 2021) and Indigenous knowledge (Lavrillier and Gabyshev 2021); • biodiversity changes throughout Siberia (Kirpotin et al 2021a), in the forests (Kharuk et al 2021) and in the southern mountains Volkova et al 2021); • historical development of peatlands, peatland ecosystem function, and carbon storage (Pascual et al 2021;Tsyganov et al 2021;Kirpotin et al 2021b).…”