Ornithological research in the Federal Scientific Center of the East Asia Terrestrial Biodiversity: from the past (Institute of Biology and Soil Science, FEB RAS) to the present

Abstract

This work highlights the history of the Laboratory of Ornithology of the Federal Scientific Center of the East Asia Terrestrial Biodiversity, FEB RAS (former Institute of Biology and Soil Science, FEB RAS) as a very important structural unit for the bird biodiversity studies among scientific institutions in the southern Russian Far East, which studies birds biodiversity. In the early 1970s an ornithological group appeared, which was originally as a part of the Vertebrate Zoology Laboratory in the IBSS, became a separate laboratory in 1989. Local groups of professional ornithologists formed here for the first time.
By the Decree of the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR of August 30, 1976, the Institute of Biology and Soil Sciences was appointed as the curator of research under the Soviet-Japanese Convention “On the protection of migratory birds and their habitats” in the Far Eastern Region. This predetermined the environmental focus of a significant part of subsequent research and marked the beginning of international cooperation.
Here we consider the laboratory’s contribution to the bird biodiversity studies on the eastern periphery of Asia in a changing world. The main research areas are monitoring of populations, species status assessment for Red Book species common to Russia and Asia-Pacific countries, population ecology and taxonomy, seasonal migrations, dynamic of the regional ornithofauna in the Russian Far East during the global trend of decreasing bird populations. We assess the role of the laboratory in the environmental assessments of facilities under construction, development of recommendations for airport bird control, maintenance of the Red Data Books, justification of new Special Protected Natural Areas.
In recent decades, the laboratory has made emphasis on hi tech technologies, such as remote photo and video recording, tracking bird movements using satellite transmitters and GPS/GSM loggers, remote sensing, use of unmanned aerial vehicles. New data have been obtained on the regional ornithofauna: ecology and population processes in a selected group of species in the south of the Russian Far East, including critically endangered species. The results of 20 years of mass banding of birds at the Primabirds Banding Station showed decrease in population of several species. The staff of the laboratory summarized and evaluated data for the last 140 years on the ornithofauna of the southwestern part of the Ussuri Region, unique in its ecological and taxonomic diversity.
The scientific results of the laboratory testify to the crucial role of the Russian Far East in maintaining rare bird species populations in the East Asia and the need to continue research in this direction.