Olexander Zhukov

Melitopol State Pedagogical University · Botany and Horticulture

Floodplain ecosystems are hotspots of biological diversity and perform important ecosystem functions in the landscape. The key to understanding the sustainability of ecosystem function is knowledge of the relationships between ecosystem components. The article reveals the role of morphological and physical properties of soil, as well as phytoindica...

• Soil penetration resistance increases as a result of park reconstruction.• Soil compaction explains one-third of the variability in soil macrofauna.• The abundance of the earthworm Aporrectodea rosea increases after reconstruction.• The abundance of the earthworm A. calliginosa decreases after reconstruction.This study is based on a park in an in...

Antioxidant enzymatic activity and soluble protein content in Robinia pseudoacacia L. (black locust), invasive tree in Europe, plants were determined under feeding conditions of the caterpillars of Parectopa robiniella Clemens, 1863, invasive miner in Europe, in trees of three (I, II, III) age groups (5–10, 15–25, and 40 years). Biochemical analysi...

The effects of climate warming and eutrophication on aquatic organisms are well established, but we lack a deep understanding of the selective mechanisms of fish communities towards eutrophication and warming in tandem. The aim of the study was to identify fish traits that were positively related to eutrophication and ongoing warming. The research...

Soil contamination with trace elements (TEs) is a pressing problem limiting the cultivation of agricultural crops; however, the non-food energy crop Miscanthus × giganteus (M×g) can be grown on such soil. The effect of a new plant growth regulator (PGR), Kamethur, and conventional Charkor was studied when M×g was cultivated in TE-contaminated soils...

In recent decades, bird communities associated with agricultural systems have declined in Western and Central Europe and in North America, but how widely these dynamics extend to other regions is poorly known. In this study, we assessed the dynamics and the main drivers of the changes in the abundance, richness, and composition of breeding bird com...

The aquatic macrophytes are widely used to indicate the trophic status of water bodies. For Ukrainian water bodies, which represent a wide ecological diversity, the indicator scales of the trophicity regime have not been developed. The purpose of the research is to develop an approach to adapt the Macrophyte Biological Index for Rivers (MBIR) for t...

The short-term effects of soil amendments on the structure, diversity and function of a nematode community of Miscanthus × giganteus was investigated. Crop was cultivated on marginal, nutrient-poor land amended with biochar in single and double doses (BD1 and BD2), biogas digestate (D), sewage sludge (SS), and hemicellulose waste (HW). Sampling was...

Horizontal structure of natural plant communities attracted the attention of researchers for a long time, while the problem of horizontal structure of urban park plantations was not studied sufficiently. Species richness of different tiers of park plantation in the large industrial city of Dnipro (Ukraine) was revealed in this study. Also features...

Parks perform a wide range of ecosystem services in urban environments. The functional importance of parks depends on the composition and structure of the tree stand and the specific influence on soil and microclimatic conditions. The article reveals the dependence of soil and microclimatic properties on the structure of the crown space of a park s...

The aims of this research are to assess the relationship between the concepts of hemeroby and naturalness of plant communities and to test the hypothesis about the ordinal nature of the response of social behavior types of plants under anthropogenic influence. Study area is the recreational zone of the Botanical Garden of Dnipro National University...

Earthworms are actively involved in the transformation of organic matter and in the formation of water-resistant soil aggregate structure. In the short time perspective earthworms are a factor that affects soil properties. However, other factors also influence soil properties and it is these factors that determine the total level of earthworm abund...

The aim of this article was to investigate the influence of structural features of the floodplain water network on the spatial and temporal dynamics of chlorophyll-a concentration as an indicator of eutrophication. The research was conducted in the waters of the “Dnipro-Orilskiy” Nature Reserve. The geographic information base with polygonal object...

Identifying climate impacts on ecosystems and their components requires observing time series of sufficient length to ensure adequate statistical power and reasonable coverage of the historical range of variability inherent in the system. The complexity of the hierarchy of climate effects reflected in temporal patterns in time series creates a need...

The article discusses the role of the soil aggregate structure in quantifying the marginality and specialisation axes of the ecological niche of the micromollusc Vallonia pulchella (Muller 1774) that inhabits technosols. The experimental polygon consisted of 105 samples located within 7 transects (15 samples each). The distance between rows of samp...

Construction of dams on rivers can lead to changes in water flow and nutrient cycling due to impediments to the flow of basic nutrients. The hypothesis that the division of fish into guilds of benthic, demersal and pelagic would in a man-made lake explain the variation in the community structure was tested. The structure of vertical fish communitie...

Taxonomic ratio in an ecological context is considered as an indicator of the level of competitive exclusion. In spite of more than a century of discussions on taxonomic ratio, the problem of finding an unbiased estimator for flora characterisation remains unsolved. The traditional form of taxonomic ratio (species/genus or species/families ratio) i...

The article reveals the patterns of the temporal dynamics of juvenile fish communities under conditions of eutrophication of water bodies. The study was conducted in the reservoirs of the nature reserve “Dniprovsko-Orilsky”. Ichthyological sampling was carried out according to standard methods used in the study of the quantitative and qualitative c...

The results of research in the 2020-2021winter period on 4 sections of the Pecheneg Reservoir and on 2 fluvial sections of the Seversky Donets river (areas with maximum fishing loads) are presented. 336 reports from anglers were analyzed. 12 fish species were registered in the catches. The most common were Abramis brama and Rutilus rutilus, which f...

The habitat suitability for the Common Pochard, a duck species in decline, was studied in the middle reaches of the Orel’ River, Central Ukraine, in 2015–2017. The ducks were counted on their breeding grounds with the use of the ground survey technique. The positions of individual birds were estimated by GPS and plotted on the Google Earth map. The...

The study examined the possibility of using the phytoindication technique to describe habitat preferences of red deer in a relatively homogeneous area. Two alternative hypotheses were tested. Hypothesis 1 suggests that the relationship between red deer and vegetation is due to a trophic factor, so preferences for individual plant species cause vege...

The paper assesses the effect of transformation of soil physical properties on the abundance of micromolluscs in the conditions of an urban park. The studies were carried out in Novooleksandrivskiy Park (Melitopol, Ukraine). An experimental polygon was represented by 7 transects with 18 sampling points in each. The interval between the points in th...

Features of shape and size variability of blood ark (Anadara kagoshimensis) inhabiting biotopes in the northern part of the Black and Azov Seas were studied. Fourteen morphometric traits were measured for each blood ark shell. The principal component analysis extracted only one principal component (PC) whose eigenvalue is greater than 1.0. The PC 1...

The study was conducted in the landscapes of south-eastern Ukraine during the nesting seasons 1988–2018. Within the landscape system associated with the Molochny Estuary, the ten most important ecosystem types were investigated, including the following: agricultural land, vegetated strips, meadows, islands and spits, reedbeds, urban areas, salt mar...

The habitat suitability for the Common Pochard, a duck species in decline, was studied in the middle reaches of the Orel’ River, Central Ukraine, in 2015–2017. The ducks were counted on their breeding grounds with the use of the ground survey technique. The positions of individual birds were estimated by GPS and plotted on the Google Earth map. The...

Different approaches were applied to assess soil moisture optima and tolerance of the ecological niche temporal projection of terrestrial invertebrates within an experimental polygon created to investigate the reclamation processes after deep underground hard-rock mining in the Ukrainian steppe drylands. Sampling was carried out in 2013–2015 on a v...

The recreation loading causes soil compaction which induces negative tendencies for the urban environment. The objectives of this study were to investigate the role of relief and tree stand density in the soil penetration resistance variation within an urban park, to assess the most suitable variogram models to evaluate the autocorrelation of regre...

The paper reveals regularities of grass projective cover variation depending on the level of recreational transformation of public green spaces, taking into account stand density and soil electrical conductivity. The hypothesis that herbaceous cover is positively influenced by moisture and trophicity of edaphotopes and the stand is an antagonist of...

The present study evaluates the relationship between the crops productivity and ecosystem diversity. The spatial variability in ecosystem diversity was measured using the Shannon landscape diversity index and distance from biodiversity hotspots that are nature conservation areas. Three crops were selected for the study: soybeans, sunflowers and win...

The article is focused on a hypothesis verification: the higher plants, microalgae and cyanobacteria may be used in bioindication of steppe ecosystem restoration dynamics after fires. On the territory of the Askania Nova biosphere reserve (Ukraine) 4 stationary polygons were investigated: SP1 – steppe area which had not been exposed to fire for 20...

Abstract. The paper identifies regularities of temporary dynamics of the communities of juvenile fish communities in different types of reservoirs of the Dnipro-Orylskiy” Nature Reserve during 1997–2015 and assesses the role of the Reserve as a factor of fish population reproduction within the water area, which is exposed to a significant anthropog...

The climate and soil conditions have a significant impact on sunflower yields. Sunflower yield dynamics in the Central European mixed forests (Polissya) and Eastern European forest-steppe ecoregions in Ukraine from 1991 to 2017 was proved to fit a log-logistic model most adequately. The model has four characteristic parameters: the Lower Limit indi...

The article investigated the influence of factors on the dependence of tree height on tree diameter in a park stand. The role of tree damage, density, and stand diversity as predictors in the dependence of tree height on its diameter was revealed. The hypothesis of the scale dependence of the influence of stand density on plant growth was tested. T...

p>This paper aims to explore spatial heterogeneity present in the crop yields data collected from 170 administrative districts in the forest and forest-steppe zones of Ukraine for 27 years using the PCA and GWPCA methods. As a result of the principal component analysis of cereal and grain legumes (pulses) yields variability seven principal componen...

Applying phytotechnologies with energy crops on lands contaminated with trace elements provides cellulosic biomass and improves soil health. The process can be reflected in changes in the soil nematode community structure. This study assessed the nematode community composition of soil with Miscanthus grown with different agronomic practices. The re...

The challenge of searching for patterns of species turnover dynamics in communities of living organisms is directly related to solving problems of stability and functioning of ecosystems. Avian communities are an essential structural and functional component of terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems which are highly diverse and play an important role i...

The multiyear cultivation of Miscanthus × giganteus Greef et Deu (M.×giganteus) at the soils polluted by metal(loid)s were researched. The biomass parameters and concentrations of elements: Ti, Mn, Fe, Cu, Zn, As, Sr, and Mo were determined in the plant’s organs at harvest. The same metal(loid)s were monitored in the plant’s leaves throughout three...

The commercial production of M. × giganteus for bioenergy and lignocellulose products requests research on plant-parasitic nematodes which can cause serious crop yield losses when the crop is cultivated long-term in big plantations at the different environmental conditions and geographical locations. The occurrence of M. × giganteus plant-feeding n...

The article shows the possibility of assessing the level of recreational transformation of public green spaces in terms of the soil penetration resistance and proved that the profile distribution of soil penetration resistance values is an information valuable indicator for establishing the level of recreational load. The measurement of soil penetr...

The paper demonstrates the applicability of several statistical methods to the analysis and interpretation of the average rapeseed yield data. It proves our hypothesis that the general trend of rapeseed yield variations in Ukraine during 1991-2017 occurred due to agro-economic and agro-technological factors, which are the determinants of the reveal...

This research aimed to characterize the spatial and temporal yields trend of soybeans in 267 administrative districts in Polissya and Forest-steppe ecoregions within Ukraine over 27 years (1991 – 2017). The common feature of temporal changes for all administrative districts is the existence of the trend that can be described by the fourth- degree p...

Hemeroby is an integrated indicator for measuring human impacts on environmental systems. Hemeroby has a complex nature and a variety of mechanisms to affect ecosystems. Hemeroby is often used to assess disturbances in different vegetation types but this concept has seldom been evaluated for animals. The role of the hemeroby gradient in structuring...

Recreation is an important cultural ecosystem service and is able to significantly affect soil heterogeneity and vegetation functioning. This study investigated the role of the relief and tree stand density in the apparent soil electrical conductivity variation within an urban park. The most suitable variogram models were assessed to evaluate the a...

In the paper the factors affecting on the α- and β-diversity of bird communities in the south and south-east of Ukraine were identified. Also indicator species for most typical habitats of the territory were identified. The relationship between indicators of bird communities diversity and area of habitats were found. The recording of the comminiti...

The development of the concept of disturbed lands recultivation as a set of activities for restoring of ecosystem services is an actual scientific problem. The principles of the formally assessment of ecosystem services for the harmonization and control of the behaviour of technoagroecosystems were developed within the frame of the ecosystem para...

We developed the conceptual model of the use of GIS technologies in the activity of natural reserve fund objects on the example of the Chornobyl Radiation-Ecological Biosphere Reserve. The GIS technologies is highly demanded due to the large area of the object, the complexity of the technogenic environment (radiation pollution), and the lack of a s...

In this study, the geographically weighted principal components analysis as an alternative method for agro-ecological characterization of the region was provided. The spatial and temporal distribution pattern of soybean yield was analyzed by using spatial statistics technology, which provided a good reference for agricultural development planning....

Zhukov, O.V., Kunah, O.M., Dubinina, Y.Y., Fedushko, M.P., Kotsun, V.I., Zhukova, Y.O., Potapenko, O.V., 2019. Tree canopy affects soil macrofauna spatial patterns on broad-and meso-scale levels in an Eastern European poplar-willow forest in the floodplain of the River Dnipro. Folia Oecologica, 46: 123-136. This paper tested the hypothesis that the...

Zhukov, O.V., Kunah, O.M., Dubinina, Y.Y., Fedushko, M.P., Kotsun, V.I., Zhukova, Y.O., Potapenko, O.V., 2019. Tree canopy affects soil macrofauna spatial patterns on broad-and meso-scale levels in an Eastern European poplar-willow forest in the floodplain of the River Dnipro. Folia Oecologica, 46: 101-114. This paper tested the hypothesis that the...

The effect of the temperature on the spawining phenology of the fish assemblages and the role of the exogenious and endogenious factors in temporal niche overlaping of fish assemblages were investigated in different water body types of the Dnipro River basin within the "Dnipro-Orilskiy" Nature Reserve (Ukraine in the years 1997-2018. The period of...

Zhukov O., Kunah O., Dubinina Y., Zhukova Y., Ganga D.: The effect of soil on spatial variation of the herbaceous layer modulated by overstorey in an Eastern European poplar-willow forest. The tree species composition can influence the dynamics of herbaceous species and enhance the spatial heterogeneity of the soil. But there is very little evidenc...

The simulation of moisture content in Nikopol manganese ore basin technosols was performed using the Penman-Monteith approach and evaluate the role of the dependence of soils surface albedo from the humidity in the intensity of evapotranspiration. The sod lithogenic soils on loess-like loam and pedozem were chosen as the objects of the investigatio...

The restoration of a stable and productive ecosystem after drastic disturbances to the natural environment due to mining and open-cast mining may be achieved by means of reclamation. Investigation of the hydrological budget of technosols is important task in developing adequate approaches to reclamation. Sod lithogenic soils on red-brown clay, on g...

The algorithm of the physiognomic vegetation types and the dead grass cover and the soil surface decryption using digital images is presented for further quantitative assessment of projective cover. The collection of material was held at the remediation site within Nikopol manganese ore Basin in city Pokrov. As objects of study were chosen followin...

У роботі показана можливість індикації регуляторних екосистемних сервісів протягом техногенного ґрунтогенезу за допомогою фітоіндикаційних оцінок вмісту карбонатів та засвоюваних форм азоту. Польові дослідження проводились протягом 2008–2017 рр. у дослідній біоекологічній станції Дніпровського аграрно-економічного університету (м. Покров, Дніпропет...

The aim of our work is to describe the ecological niche of the land snail Brephulopsis cylindrica (Menke, 1828) in terms of the edaphic properties and properties of the vegetation cover and to show the spatial features of the variation of the habitat preference index within the artificial soil body – technosols (soddy-lithogenic soils on loess-like...

The study of potential possibilities of mesofauna as bioindicator of soil contamination by heavy metals is one of the most important areas of urban ecology and soil biology. The work presents the results of ecotoxicological and bioindicative assessment of the environment and the biota of the Melitopol urbosystem of Ukraine. The dynamics of chemical...

Показана можливість індикації регуляторних екосистемних сервісів протягом техногенного ґрунтогенезу за допомогою фітоіндикаційних оцінок режиму освітлення. У якості маркерів регуляторних екосистемних сервісів у процесі техногенного ґрунтогенезу можуть бути застосовані фітоіндикаційні оцінки режиму освітлення. Причинами трансформації світлової струк...

В работе показана дискретная природа ценоморф растений на примере флоры юго-востока Украины. С помощью дискриминантного анализа показано, что ценоморфы являются дискретными классами видов растений, которые обособлены между собой в большей степени, чем можно предположить исходя из только лишь континуальной природы экологических различий между видами...

The paper established link between phytoindication estimated environmental regimes and geomorphological predictors and built environmental spatial patterns of variation modes within the Dnipropetrovsk region. 175 geobotanical descriptions were conducted in the 2016‒2017 yy. within the Dnepropetrovsk region (Ukraine). Phytoindication assessment o...

The article presents the results of evaluation of the role of edaphic and vegetation factors on beta diversity of soil macrofauna by means of the MDM-approach. The multinomial diversity model (MDM) is a method for relating the Shannon diversity to ecological factors. The research was conducted in the ‘Dnipro-Orils’kiy’ Nature Reserve (Ukraine). The...

In the present article the assumption that the design of the soil -like artificial body in zero-moment of existence determines the dynamics and trajectory of soilforming process was tasted. It was shown that an important aspect of the experiment is the search criteria that you can perform evaluation of the functional properties of the generated str...

Surface evaporation rates that are greater than precipitation rates lead to upward salinization processes and, consequently, man-made contamination of the covering surface layers on coal dumps in Western Donbass, Ukraine. The effectiveness of capping the mine dumps with different layers of black-soil mass, both with and without a shielding layer of...

This article reveals the spatial and temporal patterns of winter wheat yield dynamics in Dnipropetrovsk region and assesses the role of agro-ecological and agroeconomic factors in their formation. The crop data is from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. The data on yield of winter wheat in the period of 1966-2016, in average per year in admin...

Investigated polygon laid in the northeastern part of the “Dnieper-Orilskyy” natural reserve. Five test plots were laid within polygon. The most common moisture conditions within the explored catena meet meadow steppe regime. For most studied soil moistening the soil plays an essential role in the water regime. Groundwater was at a depth that exc...

This paper reveals the spatial and temporal patterns of grain and leguminous crops yield dynamics in Dnipropetrovsk region and evaluates the role of agro-environmental and agro-economic factors in their formation. Crop data were obtained from the State Statistics Service of Ukraine. The data of the grain and grain legumes (pulses) yield during 1966...

This paper summarizes the mechanisms behind the patterning of the intra-population spatial arrangement of the land snail Vallonia pulchella in terms of edaphic and vegetation properties. The molluscs were collected from a regular grid in recultivated soil (the research station of Dnipro State Agrarian and Economic University, Pokrov, Ukraine). As p...