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RESPONDENT
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Pavel Tomkovich
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SITE NAME
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Knipovich Bay, northern Taimyr, Russia
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| Contact
details (phone/fax//e-mail//address): |
| (495)6294474/(495)629-48-25(fax, for P. Tomkovich) // pst@zmmu.msu.ru // Zoological Museum, Bolshaya Nikitskaya St., 6, Moscow, 125009, Russia |
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PROJECT DETAILS
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Start of survey:
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End
of survey:
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Team
size:
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3 |
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WEATHER CONDITIONS
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Weather conditions: |
| Cold weather in June, following a snowy winter, resulted in a two week delay to the seasonal phenology. Average daily temperature exceeded 0øC only on 23 June and water in creeks started to run only on 28 June. Summer was cold, windy and with frequent precipitation (in July snowfalls were recorded on nine days); only in late July - early August were there periods of warm weather. |
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| Date of ice-break
on rivers: |
28.06 |
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| Date of final loss
of snow: |
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BIOTIC CONDITIONS
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| Rodents abundance evaluation: |
low |
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Breeding conditions:
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| Arctic Foxes were rather numerous (recorded every day). They regularly surveyed the tundra in search of food, predating bird clutches. Snowy Owls, Pomarine and Parasitic Stercorarius parasiticus Skuas did not breed. Waders started to breed later (first complete clutches appeared only in early July), and their nesting density was very low. Many male Grey Plover Pluvialis squatarola, Curlew Sandpiper and Knot remained unpaired. As the predation rate was high, no broods were observed in Grey Plover, Pacific Golden Plover, Knot, Curlew Sandpiper and Sanderling. Chicks hatched only from a few nests of Little Stint (incubation success 8.6%) and Turnstone. As the birds which lost their clutches departed early, only a few waders remained in the study areas by the end of July. |
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Rodent dynamics:
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| Late in June the abundance of Siberian and Collared Lemming on snow-free patches was average, and as the snow melted the corpses of dead animals frequently emerged. Through the summer lemming populations were decreasing and young of the year were not recorded at all.
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Rodent species recorded:
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| Latin | Abundance |
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| Lemmus sibiricus | rare |
| Dicrostonyx torquatus | rare |
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Summary
of fauna studies: |
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