10.24411/1728-323X-2018-16030

Ecology

ECOLOGICAL FACTORS OF THE VEGETATION COVER FORMATION IN THE LATE PLAYOSTICE IN YAKUTIAS TERRITORY

1. A. V. Protopopov, Ph. D. (Biology), Dr. Habil, Academy of Science of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Yakutsk, Russia,
2. V. V. Protopopova, Engineer-Researcher, Institute of Biological Problems of the Cryolithozone of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Yakutsk, Russia

Modern ideas about the late Pleistocene landscapes as a vast treeless space do not explain the extensive diversity of habitat finds of the fauna of that period, as well as paleobotanical finds of larches, made much to the north of their modern range. The main exogenous factors of vegetation formation in the Holocene in the territory of Yakutia, such as wildfires and the permafrost, should also have had some impact in the late Pleistocene. Due to the late Pleistocene finds of the larch and the representatives of the forest fauna in the north of Yakutia, we assume a fairly broad participation of forest communities in shaping the vegetation cover. The analysis of the fauna allows us to make a conclusion about the savanna emergence of the Late Pleistocene landscapes. At the same time, pasture grazing of large and giant representatives of the mammoth fauna helped support the wide distribution of meadow phytocenoses of postpyrogenic origin, stabilizing the process of reforestation at the stage of development of grassy formations which led to the widest development of meadow phytocenoses. In the Holocene, the vegetation of Yakutia acquired a modern taiga appearance, which is the reason for the enrichment of the fauna with purely forest species (squirrels, chipmunks, flying squirrels). The deep transformation of the vegetation cover of Yakutia took place at the border of the Holocene and Pleistocene, which led to the gradual extinction of representatives of the mammoth fauna as the area of pastures decreased.

Yakutia, the Late Pleistocene, forest communities, cryophyte savannas, post-pyrogenic succession processes, mammoth fauna.

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