Occurrences of Threatened Species included in the Third Edition of the Red Data Book of the Komi Republic (Russia)

Abstract Background The purpose of the data paper was to introduce into scientific literature the results of scientific work carried out for the third edition of the 'Red Data Book of the Komi Republic'. The article reflects methodological approaches to the formation of a list of rare and in need of protection species and describes the corresponding datasets published in GBIF. New information Information about 7,187 occurrences of 438 rare species and infraspecies included in the third edition of the 'Red Data Book of the Komi Republic' have been published.


Introduction
The diversity of species, amongst microscopic organisms, plants, animals and fungi that were formed on Earth after a long-term evolution process, constitutes the basis of the biosphere and individual ecosystems that make up this Planet. The development of human societies is associated with an ever-increasing impact on nature; in particular, with a decrease in the number of living biological species due to changes in their natural habitats and, in some cases, to direct elimination. As natural communities become less diverse, their resistance to anthropogenic impact and resilience decrease (Loreau and de Mazancourt 2013, Oliver et al. 2015, Leitão et al. 2016). This has demonstrated that a rational nature management is needed and that the conservation of biological diversity should be a priority.
Special attention is needed for those species of animals, plants and fungi whose populations, due to natural reasons or human activity, reduce their numbers and become less common. Since the second half of the 20 century, one of the most important mechanisms contributing to their preservation has been the creation of Red Data Books at the international, regional and local levels (Rodrigues et al. 2006).
In accordance with the Federal Law № 7-FZ of 10 January 2002 "On Environmental Protection" (Федеральный закон "Об охране окружающей среды" от 10.01.2002 N 7-ФЗ), the creation of the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation and the Red Data Books of the regions of the Russian Federation has been established to protect rare and endangered species of animals, plants and fungi, monitor their state and develop and th implement measures aimed at preserving and restoring the number of their populations (Popov et al. 2017).
In the Komi Republic, work aimed at preserving rare species has been carried out since the 1980s. In 1982, the monograph 'Rare and in need of protection animals and plants of the Komi ASSR' was published (Roshchevskij 1982); it summarises all the information available at that time about rare species of the flora and fauna of the region. Based on the scientific argumentation prepared by specialists of the Institute of Biology of the Komi branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Syktyvkar), the list of rare plant species of the Komi Republic was approved by Resolution № 82 of the Council of Ministers of the Komi ASSR of 24 February 1983 (Постановление Совета Министров Коми АССР от 24 февраля 1983 г. N 24).
In 1995, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environmental Protection initiated the publication of the regional Red Data Book. At the initial stage, the specialists of the Institute of Biology of the Komi Scientific Center of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences updated the lists of rare and endangered fungi, flora and fauna species proposed for inclusion in the new edition of the regional Red Book and clarified the categories of rarity status for each one of them.
When compiling the lists, the criteria for identifying rare and endangered animal species were in accordance with the 'Strategy for Preserving Rare and Endangered Species of Animals, Plants and Fungi', approved by Order of the Ministry of Natural Resources of the Russian Federation on 6 April 2004 N 323 (Приказ Министерства природных ресурсов Российской Федерации от 6 апреля 2004 года N 323 "Об утверждении Стратегии сохранения редких и находящихся под угрозой исчезновения видов животных, растений и грибов"). Amongst naturally rare species, considered potentially vulnerable due to their biological features, were taxa that met one or more of the following criteria: • low population size, • small range area (relic, endemic or range border), • low density, • low ecological valence (stenobionticity or high specialisation), • low rate of population reproduction, • negative response to human presence.
In addition, the following limiting factors and threats were taken into account when including species in the Red Lists: 1) disturbances and/or pollution of soil and vegetation in the territory of a species (such as exploration, extraction and transportation of hydrocarbons, mining of solid minerals, quarrying, laying communications and power lines, construction, passage of tracked vehicles in a snowless period, sleigh driving and overgrazing by reindeers, grazing, ploughing, land reclamation, swamp drainage, peat extraction, felling of forest/shrubs and trees and haymaking), 2) atmospheric pollution (due to combustion of hydrocarbons, transboundary transport, emissions from industrial enterprises and transport, for example, 3) fires, burning dry grass and felling residues, 4) unregulated tourism and recreation, 5) collection of plants (or their parts) for bouquets, 6) procurement of plants (or their parts) as medicinal raw materials or for use as food, 7) digging out plants (or their parts) for transplanting into gardens and household plots (or for the purpose of introduction), 8) violation of forest litter regulations, 9) violation of the hydrological regime of water bodies and watercourses and technogenic pollution of water bodies, 10) pollution of groundwater, 11) reduction of flow of rivers, 12) regulation of river flow (creation of reservoirs), 13) poaching, 14) accidental shooting, 15) destruction of nests, 16) holes, 17) destruction of forage lands, 18) collection by collectors, 19) reduction in the number of spawning grounds and breeding places, 20) causing stress during the breeding season, 21) direct destruction by humans, 22) death in fishing nets or traps on the roads and 23) overgrowing of meadows and fields with shrubs and trees.  (Taskaev 1998, Taskaev 2009, Degteva 2019. The Red Data Book of the Komi Republic is the regional legal mechanism for the conservation and restoration of rare and endangered species of animals, plants and fungi and their population diversity to ensure their sustainable existence. Its first official publication included 110 species of fungi (including lichens), 394 species of plants and 107 species of animals; a total of 611 taxa.
For determining the correct protection status of each species (and subspecies) listed in the first edition of the Red Data Book of Komi Republic (Taskaev 1998), they were assigned to one of the categories of rarity status (0-4) adopted in the 'Red List of the International Union for Conservation of Nature' (IUCN) (Lucas et al. 1978). In addition to these, the first edition of the 'Red Data Book of the Komi Republic' (Taskaev 1998) introduced category 5. The criteria used for assigning the rarity status categories to plants, fungi and animals differed. The Book included plants and fungi that were quite common, but whose abundance might decrease due to anthropogenic impact and thus required biological supervision. For the kingdom Animalia, species that had been restored or were restoring their numbers were included in category 5. Hunting, fishing and collecting animals, plants and fungi belonging to the species listed in the regional Red Data Book were prohibited throughout the territory of the Republic, except in cases provided for by the legislation of the Russian Federation and the Komi Republic.  Bardunov and Novikov 2008). In particular, the same criteria and categories for determining the rarity status of species were used: • 0 -Probably extinct. Species (subspecies or populations) previously known to inhabit the territory of Komi Republic whose presence in nature has not been recorded after continuous surveying efforts (for invertebrates, the last 100 years and for vertebrates, the last 50 years). • 1 -Endangered species. Species (subspecies or populations) whose number of individuals has decreased to a critical level or whose habitats have decreased so much in number that they may disappear in the near future. • 2 -Vulnerable species. Species (subspecies or populations) with a steadily decreasing number and/or distribution areas, which, under the further influence of factors that reduce their number, may, in a short time, fall into the category of endangered. • 3 -Rare species. Species (subspecies or populations) with naturally low abundance, distributed in a limited territory (or water area) or sporadically occurring in significant territories (or water areas) that need special protection measures to ensure their survival. • 4 -Indeterminate by status species. Species (subspecies or populations) that probably belong to one of the previous categories, but whose current state in nature is not well documented or that do not fully meet the criteria of all other categories, but need special protection measures. • 5 -Restored and recovering species. Species (subspecies or populations) whose abundance and distribution, either due to the influence of natural causes or adopted protection measures, have begun to recover and are approaching a state where they will not need any special protection measures.

Bryophytes (liverworts)
Cephaloziella integerrima (Lindb.) Warnst.  Sampling description: Information about the habitats of rare species was collected during field research. Particular attention was paid to the inventory of NPAs and in the territories within which local populations of many species were concentrated and that were listed in the Red Data Books of the Russian Federation and the Komi Republic (Degteva and Ponomarev 2014). Field studies were carried out mainly by the route method. The method of winter route counts was also used for vertebrates. The data were recorded in field journals together with geobotanical descriptions. For each occurrence, the coordinates were fixed using GPS navigators. All findings of rare species of plants and fungi were confirmed by herbarium collections, that were mainly stored in the herbarium ( Quality control: Species identification was made or checked by specialists on the corresponding taxon. The identification of 4215 occurrences (47% of the dataset) of 359 species (76% of the species included in the dataset) was supported by preserved specimens. The taxa names were normalised with help of the GBIF species matching tool (https://www.gbif.org/tools/species-lookup). The dataset was checked for errors and cleaned by methods described by R. Mesibov in A Data Cleaner's Cookbook (Mesibov 2021). The geo-referencing was checked by overlaying the occurrence points and the geographical map from the QGIS Geographic Information System (QGIS Development Team 2021).
Step description: The authors of this document prepared occurrence data (separate datasets for the taxonomic groups for which they were responsible) of rare species, not previously published in GBIF, with a common xlsx-template, based on the occurrence template recommended by the Integrated Publishing Toolkit (IPT) (https://github.com/gbif/ ipt/wiki/occurrenceData#templates). Authors were allowed to add Darwin Core terms as additional fields in their xlsx-files.
The draft checklist of the species included in third edition of Red Data Book of the Komi Republic was prepared with the help of the checklist template recommended by the IPT (https://github.com/gbif/ipt/wiki/occurrenceData#templates). This checklist was matched against the GBIF Backbone checklist using the "Species name matching" tool at gbif.org (https://www.gbif.org/tools/species-lookup) and sent out to the authors of this paper; they checked the information of those taxa for which they were responsible. Authors were allowed to add references in the 'nameAccordingTo' field, especially in those cases in which they were using synonyms or names not listed in the GBIF Backbone. The field 'taxonRemarks' was used to indicate the rarity status of each taxon.
The occurrence datasets prepared by the specialists were merged into a single dataset. The 'taxonID' field was filled with values from the corresponding field from the checklist dataset. All additional fields used by the authors were included in the merged dataset. Most of the values in the fields "decimalLongitude' and 'decimalLatitute' were rounded to two decimal places and the 'coordinateUncertaintyInMeters' field was set to a single value of 3000 (7096 records). The level of georeference data generalising was chosen according to the level of generalising recommended for the most sensitive species in our dataset -the rare bird species. Some records with poor locality data were georeferenced with greater uncertainty of: 5,000 m (79 records), 10,000 m (8 records), 15,000 m (1 record), 25,000 m (2 records), 50,000 m (1 record). Duplicated records, created after the coordinate generalisation, were deleted from the dataset. The records that did not have any information in the 'decimalLongitude', 'decimalLatitute' and 'recordedBy' fields were also deleted from the dataset. Each record in the occurrence dataset also included a URL leading to the corresponding species' description and images at the Red Data Book of the Komi Republic web page.

Geographic coverage
Description: The Komi Republic is located north-east of the Russian (East European) Plain and on the western macroslope of the northern part of the Ural Mountains (Fig. 1).  The region has severe and continental climate with frequent invasion of arctic air masses from the Arctic Ocean. The climate varies in different parts of the Republic due to its large extension from north to south and from west to east (more than 1000 km in both directions) and to the high variety of relief forms (lowlands, uplands and mountain systems). Most of the Republic is in the Atlantic-Arctic climatic zone with moderate cold (boreal) weather with long winter and short and cool summer seasons. Northwards and in the Urals, the climate becomes arctic and subarctic. The north of the region lies in the permafrost area, where the average annual temperature ranges from -4°С to -6°С, rising to 0-1°С in the south of the Republic. Annual precipitation is not higher than 400-450 mm in the north and 600 mm in the south. In montane areas, it can be up to 1000 mm (Taskaev 1997).
The southern bush tundra, formed by Betula nana L., Salix spp. and forest-tundra are dominant vegetation types in the north-east region. Most of the region is covered by taiga, mainly spruce forests dominated by Picea obovata Ledeb. In addition, pine forests (Pinus sylvestris L.) are widespread throughout the taiga, mainly on sandy terraces along riverbanks and peat soils on the edges of raised bogs. Spruce (P. obovata) and fir (Abies sibirica Ledeb.) stands and, rarely, cedar pine (Pinus sibirica Du Tour) forests are spread in the foothills of the Northern Urals. Larch (Larix sibirica Ledeb.) stands are common northwards of 64° N and at the Timan Ridge. On the western macroslope of the Urals, along the elevation gradient, vegetation forms several altitudinal belts, including mountainforest with spruce, fir and cedar pine, spruce, larch and birch forests in the north, subalpine areas where mountain woodlands are combined with bushes, meadows and fragments of mountain tundra and alpine belts.
About 65% of the landscapes of the territory of the Republic are relatively intact. In the foothills and mountains of the Northern and Subpolar Urals within the territory of the Pechora-Ilych Reserve and the Yugyd va National Park, the largest arrays of virgin forests of the European North have been preserved; they have been practically free from any human impact. In 1995, these protected areas were included in the UNESCO World Heritage List as the 'Virgin forests of Komi' (Degteva and Ponomarev 2014). This is the first site in Russia recognised by the UNESCO World Nature Heritage List, which protects 20% of the undisturbed forests of Europe. In total, there are 234 NPAs covering approximately 5.44 million ha (13% of the region area) of the Komi Republic.
NPAs are the key elements of the biodiversity conservation system in the region. Most of the species included in the Red Data Book of the Komi Republic may be found within the limits of NPAs, including 83% of the vertebrates and 80.6% of the invertebrates, 84.1% of the vascular plants, 84.3% of the mosses, 50% of the algae, 94% of lichens and 88% of the fungi (excluding lichens). The state of the rarest plant species populations within NPAs has been assessed as stable.

Column label
Column description occurrenceID An identifier for the Occurrence.  The full scientific name of the kingdom in which the taxon is classified. phylum The full scientific name of the phylum in which the taxon is classified. class The full scientific name of the class in which the taxon is classified. order The full scientific name of the order in which the taxon is classified. family The full scientific name of the family in which the taxon is classified. genus The full scientific name of the genus in which the taxon is classified. specificEpithet The name of the first or species epithet of the scientificName. infraspecificEpithet The name of the lowest or terminal infraspecific epithet of the scientificName, excluding any rank designation.
scientificNameAuthorship The authorship information for the scientificName formatted according to the conventions of the applicable nomenclaturalCode. taxonRank The taxonomic rank of the most specific name in the scientificName. scientificName The full scientific name, with authorship and date information, if known. nameAccordingTo The reference to the source in which the specific taxon concept circumscription is defined or implied -traditionally signified by the Latin "sensu" or "sec." (from secundum, meaning "according to"). preparation; V. Kanev -data preparation and editing; D. Kirillov -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; I. Kirillova -data preparation and editing; O. Kirsanova -data preparation and editing; S. Kochanov -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; A. Kolesnikova -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; T. Konakova -data preparation and editing; A. Korolev -data preparation and editing; D. Kosolapov -data preparation and editing; O. Kulakova -data preparation and editing; E. Kulyugina -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; O. Loskutova -data preparation and editing; E. Melekhina -data preparation and editing; O. Mineev -data preparation; Yu. Mineevdata preparation; V. Morozov -data preparation and editing; G. Nakul -data preparation and editing; M. Palamarchuk -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; E. Patova -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; S. Pestov -data preparation and editing; A. Petrov -data preparation and editing; I. Poletaeva -data preparation and editing; V. Ponomarev -data preparation and editing; T. Pystina -data preparation and editing; Y. Rebriev -data preparation and editing; R. Romanov -data preparation and editing; N. Selivanova -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; A. Shiryaevdata preparation; T. Shubina -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; I. Sterlyagova -data preparation and editing; A. Tatarinov -data preparation and editing; B. Teteryuk -data preparation and editing; L. Teteryuk -data preparation and editing; Z. Ulle -data preparation and editing; O. Valuyskikh -data preparation and editing; A. Zakharovdata preparation and editing; G. Zheleznova -data preparation and editing; A. Zinovyevadata preparation and editing; Y. Dubrovskiy -data preparation and editing, manuscript editing; B. Gruzdev -data preparation; A. Ichetkina -data preparation; V. Martynenkodata preparation; N. Oplesnina -data preparation; V. Panova -data preparation; I. Romanova -data preparation; M. Rubtsov -data preparation; L. Rybin -data preparation, figure creation; N. Semenova -data preparation and editing.
territories (or water areas) that need special protection measures to ensure their survival. 4 -Indeterminate by status species. Species (subspecies or populations) that probably belong to one of the previous categories, but whose current state in nature is not well documented or that do not fully meet the criteria of all other categories, but need special protection measures. 5 -Restored and recovering species. Species (subspecies or populations) whose abundance and distribution, either due to the influence of natural causes or adopted protection measures, have begun to recover and are approaching a state where they will not need any special protection measures.