Andrey Azovsky

Moscow State University · General Ecology & Hydrobiology

Intertidal macrobenthos at the small Chernaya Bight (the White Sea) was surveyed six times during 1993–2018 in order to study spatiotemporal variability. Distributions of sediments and macrophytes were highly variable in both space and time, as were most macrofaunal community attributes. Biomass slightly increased with time, while no long-term tren...

The abundance, diversity, taxonomic composition and functional structure of benthic ciliate assemblages were studied in the intertidal zone of two estuaries with contrasting conditions. The Chernaya (CH) is a small (2-km long) sub-Arctic estuary in the White Sea; the Vellar (VE) is a large (20-km long) tropical estuary in the Bay of Bengal. At both...

Knowledge of the features of the structure and productivity of the Arctic communities of marine planktonic algae is necessary to identify possible changes in the pelagic ecosystem functioning under the changing climate condition of the Kara Sea. This study shows that the species diversity, abundance of phytoplankton, and production activity of alga...

The role of local vs regional drivers of long-term community dynamics is still poorly explored. Intertidal macrofauna was studied in two small bights of the White Sea, the Medvezhya (MB, steeply sloping sandy beach, 66° 21′ N, 33° 36′ E) and Seldyanaya (SB, sheltered silty flat, 66° 20′ N, 33° 37′ E). Macrofauna was collected annually in 1987–2017...

Synchrony is a multifaceted biological phenomenon exhibited at various levels of organization. Here, we introduce the concept of structural synchrony, defined as the coherence of structural variations in multispecies assemblages occurring at a certain spatiotemporal scale, and propose a direct measure of this type of synchrony. This approach was fi...

Harpacticoid copepods of the Chernaya Bay (White Sea) intertidal zone were collected in 45 surveys carried out from spring to autumn over a 25-year period (1996–2020) at three sites that differed in sediment properties. There were no significant long-term trends or seasonal cycles in total abundance. Regarding the species composition, the differenc...

Compositional similarity generally decreases with increasing geographic distance between sites (distance decay of similarity, DDS). Two non‐exclusive mechanisms have been proposed to explain this pattern: increasing differences in environmental conditions and pure spatial effects of dispersal limitation. On regional and global scales, environmental...

Harpacticoid copepods of the Chernaya Bay (White Sea) intertidal zone were collected in 45 surveys carried out from spring to autumn over a 25-year period (1996-2020) at three sites that differed in sediment properties. There were no significant long-term trends or seasonal cycles in total abundance. Regarding the species composition, the differenc...

We analysed the pattern of spatiotemporal distribution of harpacticoid assemblages of 106 plankton samples collected in May–August of 2013–2015 in Prostor Bay, South Kuril Islands (Sea of Okhotsk). Taxonomically and ecologically diverse harpacticoid assemblages were found in the water column. Among the 49 species identified, only one was truly plan...

This study was carried out in the Yenisei estuary and in the adjacent part of the Kara Sea shelf. We analyzed and compared the distribution patterns of the different benthic taxa and size classes (micro-, meio-, macro- and megabenthos) along a pronounced gradient of environmental factors. Four ecological zones were distinguished based on certain en...

A predator–prey model that describes littoral trophic communities consisting of diatom microalgae and benthic copepod crustaceans (order Harpacticoida) was built and investigated. The model is a system of three partial differential equations of the taxis–diffusion–reaction type. The Neumann boundary condition specifies zero-flux through the borders...

Diversity and composition of benthic diatom algae and ciliates were studied at several beaches along the White and Barents seas: from highly exposed, reflective beaches with coarse-grained sands to sheltered, dissipative silty-sandy flats. For diatoms, the epipelic to epipsammic species abundance ratio was significantly correlated with the beach in...

A simple mathematical model capable of reproducing formation of small-scale spatial structures in prey–predator system is presented. The migration activity of predators is assumed to be determined by the degree of their satiation. The hungrier individual predators migrate more frequently, randomly changing their spatial position. It has previously...

Aim This study aims to evaluate the role of various factors in structuring biogeographical distribution of small‐sized organisms. More specifically, we analysed the distribution of three groups of marine benthic organisms differing in body size, both unicellular and metazoans, to assess the relevance of geographical and environmental factors on the...

The article summarized the results of long-term observations (20142018) of soil emissions and net CO2 fluxes (20172018) in natural and anthropogenically modified (AI) ecosystems of Arctic tundra on the territory of the archipelago of Svalbard (Barentsburg, 7804N, 1413E). Anthropogenic controls associated with local land use, during the period of th...

Despite the accessibility of the Faroe Islands, faunistic research on their numerous lakes and ponds is quite rare. The biota of Faroese freshwaters is still underexplored, and its specific traits raise many questions. In the present survey, 32 microcrustacean species were observed, 8 of which were new to the Faroese fauna. The obtained species lis...

Diversity patterns of tropical alpine vegetation is poorly studied. We estimated vascular plant floristic richness for two typical afro-alpine communities in Mount Kenya using a series of nested plots sized from 25 to 100 m2. The α-diversity was low for all plot sizes (4.8–7.8 and 12.8 species per one and 100 m2, respectively). Comparative analysis...

Data on benthic harpacticoid copepods from the Voronin Trench (central part of the Kara Sea) are reported for the first time. Harpacticoids accounted for 1–25% of total meiofauna, their abundance varied from 6 to 102 ind/10 cm2 and decreased with depth. Totally, 42 nominal species have been found, 15 species are new for the Kara Sea, and at least e...

Long-term (multiyear) series of biological data have some specific features. The analysis of such data is treated as a statistical problem of the extraction of long-term signal from the general variance, which is determined by a complex of factors. An attempt is made to systematize the key points that should be considered in this problem. The main...

Climate change and direct impacts of human activity are often considered among the main drivers of ecosystem dynamics; however, their relative importance for high-Arctic marine systems is not clearly understood. The Baydaratskaya Bay (southwestern part of the Kara Sea) was not subject to any human activity until 2011, when the construction of the u...

Data on benthic harpacticoid copepods from the Voronin Trench (central part of the Kara Sea) are reported for the first time. Harpacticoids accounted for 1–25% of total meiofauna, their abundance varied from 6 to 102 ind./10 cm² and decreased with depth. I total, 42 nominal species have been found, 15 species are new for the Kara Sea, and at least...

An insect complex decomposing large animal carcasses was studied in two habitat types in northern European Russia (the Republic of Karelia), with the domestic pig Sus scrofa domesticus L. used as a model. Altogether, 100 species of insects belonging to 25 families and 6 orders were revealed on or in the carcasses. The two biotopes differed in the s...

Aim Relative diversity metrics (RDMs), such as local : global or regional : global diversity ratios and percentage of endemics, are widely applied in biodiversity studies. This approach, however, is flawed because the real global diversity of many taxa is still largely unknown, especially for rare species. This potential inconsistency of RDMs has n...

For the first time, free-living ciliates were studied in sediments from a variety of habitats in the Kara Sea (the Arctic Ocean). Ciliates were found in a wide range of environmental conditions (from the intertidal zone up to depths of 554 m, from salinities ranging from 0 to 34 psu, and from coarse sands and gravel to muddy sediments), with total...

The studies of functional structure of high-Arctic Ecosystems are scarce. We used data on benthic macrofauna from 500-km latitudinal transect in the eastern Laptev Sea, from the Lena delta to the continental shelf break, to describe spatial patterns in species composition, taxonomic and functional structure in relation to environmental factors. Bot...

The structure of the carrion-associated Diptera assemblages from five towns and a village in Northwestern Russia was investigated. The carrion fly complex comprises 13 species of 4 families: Calliphoridae, Sarcophagidae, Muscidae, and Fanniidae. The impact of the meteorological (wind speed, environment temperature, air humidity) and biotopic condit...

Microcrustaceans (MCs) are an important component of freshwater ecosystems, and their local diversity is known to be driven by many factors. What are the relative contributions of these factors at the larger geographic scale? We analyzed the faunal richness and composition of freshwater Cladocera and Copepoda from 27 mainland and insular circumpola...

The harpacticoid fauna was studied at 16 stations in the Yenisei Gulf (the Kara Sea) and the adjacent shallow-water open-sea area. The total harpacticoid abundance was relatively low (an average of 64.4 individuals/10 cm²). Thirty-three species (including putative species) from 13 families were recorded; the Ameiridae, Miraciidae and Pseudotachidii...

We used a comprehensive database comprising a worldwide distribution of 3074 species of marine benthic harpacticoid copepods to explore Arctic (north to 60°N) and tropical (32°S–32°N) faunas. In addition to species and genus richness, we compared the number of observed genera with that expected from a neutral model (random samples from a correspond...

Macrobenthic communities in Baydaratskaya Bay were studied before and after the seafloor pipeline was begun to be laid out in the year 2011. Materials were collected during three surveys in 2007, 2012, and 2013. Ordination of the data based on community structure and composition revealed a clear depthrelated zonality of the communities. Stations de...

Spatial distribution of macrobenthos of middle intertidal zone was studied in scale from centimetres to 30 kilometres along the coastline. The community structure and distribution of the 5 most abundant species (Hydrobia ulvae, Mya arenaria, Macoma baltica. Peloscolex benedeni, Arenicola marina) were considered. Spatial heterogeneity of macrobentho...

The qualitative and quantitative characteristics of the heterotrophic microbial communities (bacteria, flagellates, and ciliates) in the thin water-sediment layer in the Kara Sea are analyzed. The bacterial abundance correlated with the concentration of organic matter, whereas their size depended on the abundance of heterotrophic flagellates. The n...

The presence of PCB-TRB and PCB-TOB in the Baltic, Bering, and Chukchi seas was determined. It was found that most of these physiological groups of bacteria reach a chronically contaminated PCB marine ecosystem of the Baltic Sea. It was revealed that the number of PCB-TRB and TCB-TOB mainly depends on the concentration of PCBs in the suspended matt...

Aim The biogeography and global distribution of protists has long been disputed, with two primary, opposing views. To test these two sets of views in greater detail, we have compiled the available data for marine benthic ciliates and assessed the general patterns of their diversity and distribution compared with Metazoa. Location World-wide. Method...

Nannopus palustris Brady, 1880 is a free-living widely distributed harpacticoid copepod, which has been formerly assumed to be a single, cosmopolitan but highly variable species. We compared several geographically distant N. palustris populations in terms of their morphology and genetics. Populations from the White Sea (WS), the North Sea (NS), the...

The alpha and beta diversity of benthic harpacticoids were estimated using 103 published datasets from all over the world, with depths ranging from the intertidal zone to 5600 m. alpha diversity (expected number of species per 100 individuals) was correlated with organic matter flux to the bottom, and this effect was depth-dependent, with the corre...