1. Urban Biotopes Typification Based on Moscow Ant Community Sample
Tatyana Putyatina1 and Ksenia Perfilieva2
Moscow State University (Moscow, Russia)
s: 1 2
In our opinion the urban biocenoses are influenced by the factors different from natural ones. Anthropogenic territory can be considered as a mosaic space coposed of island and ruderal areas. Human activity is the main forming factor for it. This approach, together with universal categorization of urban biotopes should considerably improve the analysis of formation and development of urbanized communities.
Objective: the urban area of Moscow study in oder to categorize biotopes and search of factors that affect the formation of ants communities in different urban environments.
By now number of studies on city living ants have been published. However, there is still a shortage of works on comparative analysis of the urban biotopes' myrmecofauna. Most cases show the result as lists of species encountered within the city in different urban biotopes, compared to the myrmecofauna of the surrounding areas. The fauna characteristics of invertebrates in small European towns are traditionally uses the urban-to-rural concept. It is based on consistent (consequent) landscape  changes from the outskirts with garden areas towards paved downtown areas. Nevertheless, such megacities as Moscow do not have clear concentric zonings. Therefore the urban-to-rural concept only partially explains and describes the cities' myrmecofauna structure.
Materials and methods
90 sites located in different parts of Moscow were surveyed to identify abundant ants species, Each study site had an area of ​​100 square meters. The selected sites reflect a wide range of anthropogenic loads: from untouched by recreational and economic activities (mowing grass, removing leaves, changing the upper soil horizon, soil contamination) to areas with a grass and shrub layer disturbed by these influences and a moss-lichen cover. The presence of species was detected at each site in two ways: a full survey of the territory and the "sight window" method. In the first case, ants and their nests, the living and dead vegetation, terrestrial formations were carefully examined. The method of the "viewing window" consisted in registering ants in the "window" zone within
25 x 25 cm free from grass sections.
The ants occurrence frequency in Moscow
(for all biotopes, )
The occurrence of different species of ants in the main types of biotopes in Moscow
Artificial lawns
Lawns
Xerophytic
meadow
Boulevards
Mesophytic
meadow
Weeds
Occurrence fractions (± SE)
oppressed
artificial
Small
parks
degrading parks
Small
Site characteristics used to define the biotopes types:
the origin of the site (soil);
the structure of vegetation;
the floral composition;
- the structure of the plant community;
the area of the site.
Agrocenos2
Agrocenos1
Species occurrence was calculated as the proportion from all studied sites (N = 90) where the species were met.
Types of biotopes :
Xerophytic
meadow
Meadows
Lawns
Agrocenoses
Boulevards
Meadows - plots with soils and grasses of natural origin, different in area. Because of the difference in the hygrophilousness of ants, in the city one can distinguish such types as xerophytic, mesophytic meadows and weeds.
Boulevards - territories with a predominance of open spaces along which trees and shrubs are planted. The areas of these biotopes are often, but not always, wider than lawns and can have a large extent. Soils, as a rule, are loose.
Agrocenoses are large (more than 20 m in the smallest of transverse sizes) open territories of native soils, which have both cultivated and uncultivated zones. They exist, as a rule, for a long time in one place.
Lawns are small areas (no more than 20 m in the smallest transverse sizes) completely or partially covered with ornamental grassy vegetation on artificial or native cultivated soils.
Mesophytic
meadow
Parks
Weeds
Small
degrading parks
Parks are territories with predominating woody vegetation of natural or artificial origin, significantly differing in size and structure. There are four types of parks: small degrading parks, small oppressed artificial parks, landscape parks and forest parks.
CONCLUSION
The typification of urban biotopes, based on the consideration of the urban environment as a mosaic space, was carried out. 11 biotopes types are allocated in Moscow.
First of all, this paper describes the basic ants communities structure of the most types of urban biotopes. The main pool of ants' species in Moscow, ranked by occurrence, is revealed. The most stable in Moscow appeared the two-species community of ants, which we called the "urban community". It consists of Lasius niger and Myrmica rugulosa, with the first species in abundance always exceeding the second.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors are grateful to colleagues: M.V Golichenkov, A.V. Rappoport and Yu.A. Zakalyukina for their help in organizing and conducting the work.
This work was executed within the State task frame
P. 2 # ЦИТИСАААА-А
Small degraded parks have a small area (up to 10 hectares) and are characterized by strong insulation and a significant urban press. Soils are both loose and natural. They have only park zones, the grass cover is considerably degraded, in places it is absent.
Weeds - plots with ruderal flora on soils of different origins, usually wetter than mesophytic meadows.
Technocenosis
Landscape parks
Small
oppressed
artificial
parks
They are well represented in the forest zone, comparable in size to the parkland.
Forest Parks
This is an average area ( hectares) of territory on natural soils. These territories occur, as a rule, from old regular parks. There are only parks no forest zone.
The forest zone predominates over the parkland.