Abstract: At the start of the twenty-first century, the historically rooted sector of pastoral reindeer husbandry in European Russia entered a period of rapid transformation driven by both environmental and social dynamics. Environmental shifts associated with the climatic reconfiguration of Arctic ecosystems, evaluations of the likely consequences of the explosive acceleration of regional industrial development,…
Category: Animals
What the Asiatic black bear has been getting up to in Far East Russia
Abstract Species’ activity patterns are driven by the need to meet basic requirements such as food, social interactions, movement, and rest. A variety of biotic and abiotic factors often influence these behaviors. From 2011 to 2021 we used camera-trap data to describe and compare the seasonal and daily activity patterns of the relatively poorly studied…
Polar bear poo and human waste
Affected by ice free seas, polar bears are increasingly visiting human villages and adding human waste to their diet. So what are Russian Arctic bears eating? Researchers decided to analyse bear poo to measure natural vs human waste sources of food. Arctic sea ice melt has left polar bears unable to feed on their natural…
Shamanic Dress, Reindeer Herding, and the Challenge of Climate Change in Northern Siberia
Vera Solovyeva is researching how the Éven indigenous people are adapting to climate change, and how it affects their shamanic beliefs particularly for breeding and managing reindeer. For example: During the celebration of the new year at the summer solstice, a reindeer is sacrificed in honor of Hɵvki, the highest deity. The sun reindeer is…
Biting back at humans with climate change
A human disease called dirofilariasis caused by parasitic mosquitoes has been affected by the warmer climate in Russia, expanding north and east, currently 58° N (Kondrashin et al., 2022) in both European and Asian Russia. Researchers developed a map using data from the Russian Meteorological office between 1937 and 2016. The data shows long term average…
Russian Climate Research 