Olexander Zhukov

• Professor
• Professor at Bogdan Khmelnitsky Melitopol State Pedagogical University

Comparisons in different time periods using individual spectral indicesare often used to assess the dynamics of vegetation cover. The NDVI is a verypopular index for indicating disturbances in the structure of vegetation cover.Various vegetation indices are highly correlated for homogeneous vegetationcover, so assessing dynamics based on one of the...

The calculation of environmentalparameters was conducted using phytoindication scales. The scale developed byDidukh [1] enables ordination analysis basedon 12 factors: soil humidity (Hd), soil moisture variability (fH), soilaeration (Ae), soil nitrogen content (Nt), soil acidity (Rc), salt regime (Sl),carbonate content (Ca), temperature regime (Tm)...

Urban green spaces are integral to sustainable city development, offering ecological, social, and economic benefits, including climate regulation, biodiversity preservation, and improved human well-being. Among urban trees, the Norway maple (Acer platanoides) is widely utilized for landscaping due to its attractive appearance, vibrant autumn foliag...

Root-knot nematodes Meloidogyne spp. are sedentary endoparasites that infest a wide range of plant species; they are also widely distributed, making them one of the most economically significant pests. Similarly, damage caused by Aphelenchoides fragariae can lead to substantial reductions in both crop yield and quality. This research focused on the...

The present study elucidates the morphological and functional characteristics of the water bodies within the Dnipro-Orelskyi Nature Reserve and examines their influence on the species composition of macrophytes. It was determined that the diversity of functional types of water bodies – including confluent lakes, contrafluent lakes, isolated floodpl...

The investigation is devoted to the analysis of the impact of organic fertilisers, in particular biochar derived from sewage sludge, on the productivity of the energy crop Miscanthus × giganteus and soil health on marginal lands. The results of long-term observations show that among organic additives, biochar demonstrates the most pronounced stabil...

The hypothesis was tested in order to ascertain whether there is a correlation between geographical and habitat estimates of the optimum for macrophyte species in conditions of a temperature gradient. The influence of asymmetrical response patterns across the environmental gradient on the outcomes of phytoindication was also examined. The study was...

The article proposes a methodology for identifying the hemeroby of avifauna inhabiting a contemporary industrial metropolis. The Landsat 8-9 OLI/TIRS satellite image of the city of Dnipro (Ukraine) dated 14 July 2024 was employed for further analysis. The classification of land cover types was performed in SAGA-9 without training using the k-means...

The spatial structure and composition of urban parks play a crucial role in shaping bird communities by determining the availability and quality of suitable sites for nesting, feeding, and shelter. In this study, we investigated bird communities inhabiting urban parks and squares in Dnipro, Ukraine, during the breeding seasons of 2022–2024. Using t...

Miscanthus × giganteus biomass plays a crucial role in producing renewable energy and bio-based products, supporting global sustainability objectives. However, its introduction into the European Union has made it susceptible to the ectoparasitic needle nematode Longidorus spp., which are known vectors of severe viral diseases. The aim of the presen...

Background. Environmental impact assessments and the development of measures for the protection and sustainable use of ecosystems should take into account that not only steppe ecosystems but also forest, marsh, salt marsh and meadow ecosystems are referenced for the steppe zone. A comparative approach requires the study of reference ecosystems to u...

The importance of seed and vegetative propagation for the spontaneous expansion of black locust on abandoned agricultural land was evaluated in the present study. The dynamics of expansion was reconstructed on the basis of spatial distribution data on the age of individuals of this species. A non-homogeneous Poisson process with a linear trend and...

The study evaluated the influence of aquatic environmental features, morphological and functional traits of water bodies and directional spatial processes on the macrophyte community of floodplain ecosystems formed as a result of water flow regulation by the construction of dams. The fluvial processes were found to be still the main factor in the f...

Reliable indicators of success are needed to monitor the process of reclaiming disturbed land in order to understand the achievement of reclamation objectives. The formation of coherent dynamics of vegetation and soil development is ultimately a crucial condition for the success of reclaiming territory disturbed by surface mining and the possibilit...

The article discusses the application of hemeroby and naturalness indicators for monitoring the state of aquatic macrophytes in protected areas, taking into account the ecological characteristics of plant community syntaxons. Naturalness and hemeroby are considered as potential indicators of the state of aquatic ecosystems and the level of their an...

This study aimed to evaluate the effect of biostimulants derived from Streptomyces avermitilis metabolites on entomopathogenic nematodes: Steinernema carpocapsae , Steinernema feltiae , and Heterorhabditis bacteriophora , obtained from the soil of several Miscanthus × giganteus plantations in 2020–2023. The nematodes were isolated, identified, and...

The study revealed the relationship between geographic and habitat estimates of the optimum of macrophyte species under temperature gradient conditions. How the estimates correlated with the point and habitat scales of the indicators was determined. The results indicate that the abundance of many species decreases sharply under extreme conditions c...

The study identified the indicators of functional and morphological diversity of the Dnipro River floodplain water bodies within the Dnipro-Orilsky Nature Reserve. The database of recorded water bodies of the reserve consists of 302 objects. The total area of the floodplain and the water bodies close to it is 24.2 km2, and the area of the water bod...

Citation: Alexeyeva A., Holoborodko K., Ivanko I., Zhukov O., Loza I. (2024): Characteristics of powdery mildew [Sawa-daea bicornis (Wallr.) Miyabe] influence on the photosynthetic process in Norway maple (Acer platanoides L.) seedlings. J. For. Sci., 70: 31-39. Abstract: The article presents the results of research on the impact of Sawadaea bicor...

The article presents the results of research on the impact of Sawadaea bicornis (Wallr.) Miyabe on the state of photosynthetic apparatus in Acer platanoides L. seedlings using a technique of chlorophyll fluorescence induction (ChlF) measurement, which at the present time can be implemented through the use of biosensors. The research was conducted i...

Young-of-the-year fish communities are widely used as bioindicators of various environmental disturbances. This study was conducted from 1997 to 2015 and aims to develop fish trait–based indices of changes in the temperature regime and eutrophication of water bodies in the Dnipro River basin. We identified fish traits that significantly correlate w...

The study aimed to assess the enzymatic antioxidant system for determining the species-specific response of Aesculus species different in tolerance to C. ohridella attacks. Antioxidant activity of non-infested and infested leaves in six species of the genus Aesculus was investigated on 15-year-old representatives growing in Dnipro city (Steppe zone...

The destruction of soil and vegetation caused by mining, if not prevented through careful planning, is usually extreme, as the original ecosystems have been grossly disturbed or buried in the mining process. A radical reconstruction is therefore necessary. In nature, this happens through the well-known processes of primary succession, without human...

Urban parks provide a variety of ecosystem services, and a range of management practices promote their maximisation. The species diversity of plant communities is a factor in the maintenance of ecosystem services. The reconstruction of parks is one of the management practices, but the environmental impact of such activities is not clear. The recons...

The ecomorphic approach was developed to analyze the structure of natural plant communities. This method was applied to analyze the ecological structure of an artificial park plantation in an urban environment. Urban parks perform important and diverse functions in the urban environment. As anthropogenic objects, urban parks should be subject to ad...

Urbanization causes the highest local extinction rates and often leads to the loss of the vast majority of native species. Plant communities are sensitive to urban expansion and are therefore indicators of human land use. A city park, part of which has undergone reconstruction, was studied. The study found that the changes in ecological conditions...

The EU's 2030 Biodiversity Strategy and the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework call for 30% coverage of land and sea protected areas and strict protection for 10% of land area to prevent and reverse biodiversity loss. Ukraine has declared its aspiration to integrate into the European Union and must back up its statements with action and...

The study established the classification position of the soils of the Dnipro River valley (within the Dnipro-Orilsky Nature Reserve) according to the international WRB classification. The pits were laid along three transects that passed through the most significant relief gradients within the study area. The study of the morphological structure of...

Analysis of the nematode community has been considered a key indicator of soil health. In this study, the assessment of nematodes was performed two times during the third growing season in soil contaminated by chemical elements where Miscanthus × giganteus was cultivated in the years 2019–2022. A morphological approach was used to identify the nema...

The role of tree species as a tool for bioaccumulation of heavy metals is an important current issue within the context of the increase of anthropogenic pressure in urban ecosystems. The article presents the results of research on the level of soil contamination with heavy metals and the processes of their accumulation by native and introduced tree...

The use of black locust (Robinia pseudoacacia L.) is still controversial, especially in managed forests, due to its invasive nature. The black locust has been proven effective in reclamation of degraded lands when native species are not an alternative in the face of the climate change and desertification. Therefore, the importance of black locust i...

One of the main factor that adversely affects plant development is soil contamination with toxic wastes from industrial, agricultural, active military operation’s sources [1]. Although the cultivation of agricultural crops is severely restricted by soil contamination with trace elements (TEs), the non-food warm season perennial C4 grass (WSG) Misca...

Plant Growth Regulators (PGRs) based on Stereptomyces avermitillis s econdary metabolites (Charkor, Stimpo, and Regoplant) used for improving the productivity of the second-generation energy crop Miscanthus x giganteus (Mxg) during phytoremediation in Trace Elements (TEs) contaminated soil [1]. Recently introduced PRG Kamethur based on the derivati...

Floodplains are centers of species diversity, so floodplain habitats often contain protected areas. However, conservation strategies pay little attention to soils, on which the functional stability of both individual ecosystems and landscape chains as a whole depends. Soil morphology provides structural and functional information about floodplain e...

The article evaluates the dependence of the most common indices of species diversity on sample size and determines their ability to differentiate between different types of ecosystems, with a special emphasis on discriminating between natural and anthropogenic ecosystems. An approach to adjusting the indices to reduce their dependence on sample siz...

This study aims to investigate the transformation of organizational culture during year of the of the active phase of the russian-Ukrainian war that contributes to the survival of Bogdan Khmelnitsky Melitopol State Pedagogical University as an organization and is a factor in the transition from the survival to the phase of successful and dynamic de...

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...

This article considers the application of remote sensing data to solve the problems of forestry in the Polissia zone (Ukraine). The satellite remote sensing was shown to be applicable to monitoring the damage caused by diseases and pests to forest resources and to assessing the effects of fires. During the research, a detailed analysis and optimiza...

• 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...

The impact of the plant growth regulators (PGRs) Stimpo, Regoplant, and Charkor on the production of the second-generation energy crop Miscanthus × giganteus on marginal post-military soil was investigated during two vegetation seasons. The land, previously a tank training polygon, has not been in use since 1990 and has become marginal. Biological...

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...

Soil macrofauna are ecosystem engineers. They create soil structure. In the steppe zone, differences in soil macrofauna, the intensity of their activity and particular effects of individual invertebrate communities may be observed within different facets of the landscape. In Calcic chernozem, under herbaceous vegetation and forest plantations, the...

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...