Climatic and landscape influences on the distribution and abundance of the Pleistocene small-mammal burrows of Ukraine

ABSTRACT

In this publication, we consider the impact of the Pleistocene environmental changes (with a focus on soil formation and other factors) on the abundance and distribution of burrowing small mammals in the Ukrainian area. The general patterns of changes in nature and climate, such as direction, rhythm, zonality, regionality, and individuality of development, play a significant role in analysing the trends in the small mammal fauna change over time and laterally throughout the Pleistocene. These patterns became decisive in the formation and distribution of the small-mammal fauna in Ukraine, when the climatic conditions, accessibility to colonisation, determined by obstacles and distance from the centres of formation of previously existing species, served as restriction.

KEYWORDS:

• Paleogeography
• paleolandscape
• vegetation
• soils
• krotovinas

Acknowledgements

The work was carried out on the basis of participation in the international field seminar «Populations in the non-optimal environment» (Chernivtsi – Kamyanets-Podilsky, Ukraine, 20–23.09.2017), which took place within the framework of the INQUA-HABCOM Project 1606 «Ground squirrels on the march: expansion and speciation in the Quaternary of the Circum-Pontic area and surroundings». The research conducted under the project of Geography Institute of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine «Changes of Pleistocene and Holocen soils in the key sections of the territory of Ukraine as base for the reconstruction of the natural conditions of the last» (№11711004907). Authors are grateful to the reviewers Dr. Juan Manuel López-García, Dr. Natalia Gerasimenko, Dr. Bogdan Ridush and the editor-in-chief of journal Dr. Duke for valuable advice and understanding.

We also thank the colleagues who contributed our participation in the international field seminar «Populations in the non-optimal environment» (Chernivtsi – Kamyanets-Podilsky, Ukraine, 20–23.09.2017) and to PhD. Lilia Popova, Dr. Lutz Christian Maul among others for the organisation of the release of this publication.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.