The Plowing up of the Virgin Lands and the Bobac Marmot Resources of Central Kazakhstan

Zimina, R. P.; Polevaya, Zh. A.; Yelkin, K. F.

doi:10.1080/00385417.1972.10770323

Cited by 2 publications

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“…We showed that declines in burrow densities were steeper in persistent cropland compared to persistent grassland, and in plots that were cropped prior to the Virgin Lands Campaign, compared to plots converted later. The repeated disturbance of burrows through ploughing, likely led to increased colony stress and higher energy costs for re-establishing disturbed burrows [23,50,51], ultimately reducing colony fitness and size [23]. Because the declines were steepest in older fields, repeated disturbances associated with cropping may substantially decrease population size over time, despite the effects of single disturbances possibly being minor [22].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Poisoning of burrowing mammals has been a common practice historically in parts of Canada, USA, and Mexico, but was not widely practiced in Kazakhstan [23,28]. Bobak marmot populations have been historically affected by overhunting and trapping, especially in Russia, but since the 1950s, hunting became regulated and the marmot population rebounded [26,50]. Furthermore, fur trapping and hunting are highest in proximity of human settlements, so their effects would be partially accounted for in our analyses via the predictor distance to farm [50].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Cold War spy satellite images reveal long-term declines of a philopatric keystone species in response to cropland expansion

et al. 2020

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Agricultural expansion drives biodiversity loss globally, but impact assessments are biased towards recent time periods. This can lead to a gross underestimation of species declines in response to habitat loss, especially when species declines are gradual and occur over long time periods. Using Cold War spy satellite images (Corona), we show that a grassland keystone species, the bobak marmot ( Marmota bobak ), continues to respond to agricultural expansion that happened more than 50 years ago. Although burrow densities of the bobak marmot today are highest in croplands, densities declined most strongly in areas that were persistently used as croplands since the 1960s. This response to historical agricultural conversion spans roughly eight marmot generations and suggests the longest recorded response of a mammal species to agricultural expansion. We also found evidence for remarkable philopatry: nearly half of all burrows retained their exact location since the 1960s, and this was most pronounced in grasslands. Our results stress the need for farsighted decisions, because contemporary land management will affect biodiversity decades into the future. Finally, our work pioneers the use of Corona historical Cold War spy satellite imagery for ecology. This vastly underused global remote sensing resource provides a unique opportunity to expand the time horizon of broad-scale ecological studies.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cold War spy satellite images reveal long-term declines of a philopatric keystone species in response to cropland expansion

et al. 2020

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“…The breakdown of the Soviet Union resulted in the abandonment of a large area of cropland in some post-Soviet and ex-Soviet countries in the Eurasian steppe [14,16,24,85,86]. However, as one of the primary food providers for the former Soviet Union [87,88], it was unclear whether Kazakhstan had also experienced a similar change. According to the incomplete statistics from FAO, there has been a significant decreasing trend in arable land in Kazakhstan since 1995 ( Figure 2); however, our results showed rainfed and irrigated cropland at the national level had a significant increasing trend with a significant increasing stage before 1999-2000 and a relatively stable stage during 2000-2015 ( Figure 2), and the Mann-Kendall test and regime shift analysis at 14 regions also confirmed this result (Table 2, Figure 3).…”

Section: Cropland Area Change In the Post-soviet Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As an important traditional industry in Kazakhstan, agriculture had formed a relatively stable structure during the Soviet Union Era [89], which was affected very little by political surge. Due to its huge virgin land resources, especially the large area of the steppe [87,88,90], traditionally agricultural development is far easier than the development of other industries such as oil and gas [14,91]. Hence, a significant increase of cropland area in an earlier stage of newly sovereign Kazakhstan is a necessary consequence, with the coming of gradual foreign investment for resource exploitation, the agriculture in Kazakhstan lost its primary importance and cropland development showed a relatively stable trend [22,92,93].…”

Section: Cropland Area Change In the Post-soviet Eramentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatio-Temporal Reorganization of Cropland Development in Central Asia during the Post-Soviet Era: A Sustainable Implication in Kazakhstan

Wei

Zhu

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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The abandonment and cultivation of croplands in the Eurasian Steppe has become the focus of global and regional food security and agricultural policy-making. A large area of cropland in some post-Soviet countries has proven to be abandoned with the disintegration of the Soviet Union; however, it is unclear as to whether Kazakhstan also experienced a similar change as one of the main food providers for the former Soviet Union. In this study, we used the annual land cover dataset (1992–2015) from the European Space Agency, Climate Change Initiative (ESA-CCI) to detect spatio-temporal characteristics of rainfed and irrigated cropland changes in Kazakhstan. The Mann–Kendall test and regime shift analysis showed that rainfed and irrigated cropland at national level had a significant increasing trend with a significant rising up to 1999 and stagnation during 2000–2015, which was further confirmed with analysis at 14 regions. The greatest contributor to rainfed and irrigated croplands was steppes, followed by shrinkage of water bodies since 2005 to a great extent, rapid urbanization process resulted in losses of a part of irrigated oases. The trend surface analysis indicated that reorganized stable pattern characterized by rainfed cropland in north and irrigated cropland in south was driven by the strategy of the gradual agricultural development of oases. The nonexistence of cycle between the abandonment and recultivation proved that newly-gained cropland from steppe may be less degraded and more productive for sustainable land use in Kazakhstan. In conclusion, this study can provide strong evidence for sustainable land use and a basis for food security policy-making in Kazakhstan, and even all of the Central Asian countries in the future.

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The Plowing up of the Virgin Lands and the Bobac Marmot Resources of Central Kazakhstan

Cited by 2 publications

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Cold War spy satellite images reveal long-term declines of a philopatric keystone species in response to cropland expansion

Cold War spy satellite images reveal long-term declines of a philopatric keystone species in response to cropland expansion

Spatio-Temporal Reorganization of Cropland Development in Central Asia during the Post-Soviet Era: A Sustainable Implication in Kazakhstan

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