Between 18 and 31 July, zoologists from Voronezh State University and the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint Petersburg) went on an entomological expedition to the Teberda Nature Reserve. They study the ecology and the species composition of insects, which are an important part of natural ecosystems.
The expedition included Professor Viktor Golub, Head of the Department of Zoology and Parasitology of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences of VSU, Viktoria Soboleva, lecturer at the Department of Zoology and Parasitology, and Natalia Golub, PhD, senior researcher at the laboratory of insect systematics of the Zoological Institute of RAS. Academic staff members and PhD students from the Department of Zoology and Parasitology have been conducting their research at the Teberda Nature Reserve for many years within a partnership agreement.
They go to the mountains to study the composition and structure of insect species in ravines and on mountain slopes at various height and in various plant communities. This time they discovered a number of species that had not been previously registered at the reserve or in the whole Karachay-Cherkess Republic. Following a request by the reserve’s administration, the expedition also studied the composition of beech pests whose population had significantly increased in the Dombay forest this year.
The researchers collected the samples of the tissues of dying pine trees in order to identify the pests. The results of the analysis of the composition of the primary beech pests and secondary pine pests will be used to monitor their population and assess their danger.
