Alexander Volkovitskiy

Institute of Plant and Animal Ecology, UB RAS · Arctic Research Station

Plain Language Summary This paper represents a synthesis of conceptual analyses, case study analyses, and practical thoughts on the application of convergence science in Arctic change studies. During a virtual workshop in 2020, a diverse, multi‐national team of authors consisting of social scientists, engineers, earth system scientists, and ecologi...

Human and animal mobility lies at the core of any nomadic pastoralist system. Anthropological studies of migratory patterns of mobile pastoralists' movements have revealed two universal sets of factors-ecological and non-ecological-that influence such movements differently. Our study focuses on the nomadic movement of the Yamal Nenets reindeer herd...

Рассматривается специфика современного кочевого движения оленеводов Ямала. Авторы используют микрорегиональный подход как метод исследования культурных и хозяйственных особенностей сообществ коренных народов Севера в крупном масштабе. Ненецкие домохозяйства микрорегиона «Мордыяха» на северо-западе полуострова Ямал за последние 15–20 лет несколько р...

Plain Language Summary Large herbivores influence tundra vegetation via their grazing, trampling, and nutrient inputs from feces and urine. However, the extent of these impacts remains unclear as we seek to understand and predict the responses of Arctic ecosystems to climate change. Using maps that we developed that record the annual summertime mov...

In recent years the wide range of issues concerning reactions of the Yamal Nenets to climate change has attracted growing interest. Crucial events in Yamal that caused the widest resonance—the mass mortality of reindeer because of the icing in 2013 and the outbreak of anthrax in 2016 (Forbes et al., 2016; Golovnev, 2017; Hueffer, Drown, Romanovsky...

The movement patterns of domestic reindeer depending on indigenous herding practices were studied using GPS collars. Data were collected during the summer-autumn of 2021 from the private Nenets herd in the South of Yamal Peninsula, Russia. We classified the types of herders’ influence on reindeer and estimated the densities of GPS fixes on pastures...

Global warming has pronounced effects on tundra vegetation, and rising mean temperatures increase plant growth potential across the Arctic biome. Herbivores may counteract the warming impacts by reducing plant growth, but the strength of this effect may depend on prevailing regional climatic conditions. To study how ungulates interact with temperat...

Human-wildlife problems often arise when predators kill livestock. This can develop into serious conflicts between traditional pastoralists and other stakeholders, such as government officials and conservationists. In the Yamal Peninsula (Russia), nearly half of the indigenous Nenets people are reindeer herders. They have recently faced many challe...

This book is a result of an ethnographic and anthropological study of energy processes in the Arctic and Siberia on the micro-level with a focus on the use of various resources by representatives of local communities in the context of socio-economic changes. It approaches the Arctic and Siberia not as a territory of experiments carried out by exter...

Studies of the effects of variation in resource availability are important for understanding the ecology of high-latitude mammals. This paper examines the potential of dental evidence (tooth wear and breakage) as a proxy for diet and food choice in Vulpes lagopus, the Arctic fox. It presents a preliminary study of dental microwear, gross wear score...

2011 г. на полуострове Ямал было закончено строительство железной дороги Обская-Бованенково, предназначенной для транспортировки грузов и людей к одному из крупнейших газовых месторождений России. Появление дороги на территориях проживания ямальских оленеводов привело к вы-ведению из оборота значительной части пастбищ. Вместе с тем за последние год...

Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous Okrug has been long presented as the most reindeer-herding and the largest gas producing region of Russia. The synthesis of modern technologies and the “traditional way of life” has become the brand of Yamal. The outbreak of the Siberian plague in Yamal in the summer of 2016 attracted increased attention to the issues of re...

Since 1990s the collection of panty (reindeer velvet antlers) have become one of the important part of the economy of the tundra peoples. The panty trade had formed the whole social network between reindeer herders and “merchants” — the collectors of panty connecting a reindeer herder with the global market. After the outbreak of anthrax in 2016 in...

The paper presents several cases demonstrating how both sedentarized and nomadiс Nenets imagine a “proper” culture and variations of its representation, and how they exercise their “right for the culture”. Sharing the ideas about the close interaction between “the tundra” and “the settlement”, the authors reflect on the diversity of the views of th...