Moss occurrences in Salair ridge (Altai-Sayan mountain country)

Study Extent

Most of the works has been done at two key areas of Salair ridge representing two forest sub-belts of the ridge. The key area “Kotorovo” is а spot of well-preserved native vegetation in the axial part of the ridge, in the sub-belt of black fir-aspen forests, so-called ‘chernevaia taiga’. The author's long-term research on this territory focused on the area between the settlement Kotorovo and Suenga, in the upper Suenga river tributaries basin. The second key area is the surroundings of Mirnyy Settlement, it represents well-preserved native mesophilic grassy pine and birch forests, which form the lower sub-belt of the forest belt. Chernevaia taiga and mesophilic grassy pine and birch forests are the two most spread types of plant communities on the Salair ridge. Besides the stationary work, many route studies have been conducted to explore mire and steppe communities in different parts of the ridge in 1992-1996. Rock outcrops and habitats along crooks were the objects of special attention.

Sampling

In most cases bryological investigations were in parallel with the geobotanical relevés of the plots; moss samples were collected on each type of substrate. Rock outcrops and habitats along crooks were the objects of special attention. Standard methods of moss collection have been used. Preserved samples are in NSK.

Quality Control

The data were collected and identified by reseachers from the Central Siberian Botanical Gagden of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Some moss specimens were identified by taxonomic specialists from the Faculty of Biology of Lomonosov Moscow State University, and the Tsitsin Main Botanical Garden of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Method steps

1. The source materials are stored in two personal databases. Geobotanical and bryological materials are stored in the IBIS (Zverev, 2007). Herbarium label data can be found in the Excell table (partially available on the website). The materials were brought together in the Excell table and revised; the names and contents of the fields were aligned with Darwin Core (Wieczorek et al. 2012) and include the following: “occurrenceID”, “taxonID”, “scientificName”, “taxonRank” “kingdom”, “phylum”, “class”, “family”, “genus”, “acceptedNameUsage”, “country”, “countryCode”, “stateProvince”, “verbatimLocality”, “habitat”, “fieldNotes” (extended field description of habitat, in Russian), “verbatimElevation”, “decimalLatitude”, “decimalLongitude”, “coordinateUncertaintyInMeters”, “day”, “month”, “year”, “identifiedBy”, “recordedBy”, “basisOfRecord”, “collectionCode”, “catalogNumber” (number of a specimen in herbarium NSK), “datasetName”.

231 moss taxa from 119 genera and 35 families

1. Bryophyta
   rank: phylum

Salair ridge is the northwestern spur of the Altai-Sayan mountain system. That is a low peneplain, indistinctly expressed in relief with average altitudes ca. 400 m. Macroslopes of Salair are asymmetric, the eastern one is steep, while the western is more gentle. The ridge surface is covered with a thick layer of quaternary sediments, mainly eolian loess, which is especially thick on the western slope. Rocky outcrops occur mainly in river valleys. Annual precipitation is about 1000 mm on the western slope, declining to 400 mm in the rain shadow on the eastern one. The ridge is totally within the forest belt. But the forest belt is heterogeneous: the difference in local climates, supported by differences in drainage, provides differentiation of forest vegetation. The largest areas are occupied by black fir-aspen forests (Abies sibirica + Populus tremula), the communities form continuous carpet covering the gently sloping watersheds. On the steep and drier eastern macroslope of the ridge, mesophilic grassy pine and birch forests prevail. Petrophytic steppe with Festuca valesiaca, Koeleria cristata, Potentilla acaulis, Artemisia frigida, Carex duriuscula occurs on steep and sunny faces among the forest. Some xerophytic mosses participate in these communities. Mires are rare and small, being mostly of mesotrophic-type. Syntaxonomy of the vegetation is comprehensively described by Lashchinskiy (2009).