Vascular plants occurrences in the Southern Urals industrial towns (Sterlitamak and Salavat)

Abstract Background The paper presents datasets of plant species of two industrial cities Sterlitamak and Salavat (Republic of Bashkortostan) is presented. These cities are part of the Southern Bashkortostan urban agglomeration and are amongst the three largest in the Republic. The population of Sterlitamak is about 276,000. There are large oil refineries and other large industrial transport infrastructure facilities. Datasets are prepared on the basis of long-time field research by Ya. Golovanov (2008 - 2016). Technical preparation of the datasets was carried out by M. Lebedeva and M. Drap. The herbarium samples are stored in the herbarium collections of the South Ural Botanical Garden Institute and the Ufa Institute of Biology (UFA). The data paper describes three datasets on species occurrences. It presents occurrences of species in different types of habitats (anthropogenically transformed and semi-natural). The datasets consists of 5,462 occurrence records totally. Most of the records (5,359) are georeferenced. New information The total number of records in three datasets is 5,462. They contain of vascular plant species occurrences in the two industrial cities of the Southern Urals (Sterlitamak and Salavat). There are both alien and natural species occurrences in different types of habitats (antropogenically transformed and semi-natural).


Introduction
The rate of urbanisation on a global scale is rapidly increasing. Today, about 50% of the world's population lives in cities; in Europe, this proportion is 70% (United Nations 2008). Urbanisation is a major anthropogenic effect that can lead to biotic homogenisation (Lososová et al. 2012, Trentanovi et al. 2013, Aronson et al. 2014). An increase in the anthropogenic impact on ecosystems currently leads to synanthropisation, replacing the species of natural communities with the synanthropic and alien species resistant to anthropogenic effects. Replacing natural plant communities with the synanthropic ones, reducing biodiversity, simplifying the structure, reducing the productivity and stability of plant communities are taking place (Abramova and Mirkin 2000). However, urban areas belong to the types of landscapes with a high species richness. Often, more species are represented on the territory of the cities than on the adjacent territories. The main feature of urban flora is a high proportion of alien plant species (von der Lippe and Kowarik 2008). This phenomenon has been observed in various regions of the world -Europe, North America, South America (for example, Balmford et al. 2001, Araujo 2003. At the same time, forest, steppe, meadow, meadow-steppe elements of the flora, which reflect the zonality of the vegetation cover, are preserved in highly fragmented natural habitats in urban landscapes. These territories also make a significant contribution to the floristic species richness of urban ecosystems.
The study of the urban flora has been carried out in the Republic of Bashkortostan over the years by a number of authors (e.g. Ishbirdina and Ishbirdin 1993, Ryabova 1996, Edrenkina, V. À. 2005, Golovanov and Abramova 2016. In this paper, we consider two industrial cities, Salavat and Sterlitamak, which are part of the Southern Bashkortostan urban agglomeration and are located on the border of the steppe and forest-steppe zones. In the past, almost all treeless flat spaces in this area were covered by herbaceous-bunchgrass steppes, dominated by Stipa capillata L., with an admixture of Stipa lessengiana, S. pennata, S. korshinskyi, Festuca pseudovina and various meadow steppe herbal species. On the edges of forests, in wetter habitats and on the northern slopes, meadow steppes developed with the presence of feather grass and an abundance of legumes. On shallow chernozems, there were bunch-grass steppes, almost devoid of herbs. Saltwater meadows developed in the floodplains of the rivers (Kadilnikov 1964).
Due to the long history of economic development, as well as the high pace of construction, the preserved areas of natural vegetation (steppe and meadow habitats) within the city boundaries were mainly destroyed. At the moment, the main types of vegetation cover of the city are plots with various kinds of ruderal (secondary) habitats. In the floodplains of the rivers, there are ruderalised meadows, areas of insulated and wet meadows, steppes, floodplain forests, as well as a complex of aquatic and coastal-aquatic vegetation.
The variety and main patterns of vegetation differentiation in Sterlitamak and Salavat are considered in the works of Ya. Golovanov , Golovanov 2018.
Prepared according to the concept of "data paper" (Chavan and Penev 2011), this paper aims to present datasets of vascular plants occurrences of the Southern Urals industrial cities (Sterlitamak and Salavat), which are published in GBIF as a Darwin Core Archive.

Project description Title: Vascular plants occurences of the Southern Urals industrial cities (Sterlitamak and Salavat)
Personnel: Yaroslav Golovanov, Larisa Abramova, Mikhail Drap, Maria Lebedeva Study area description: Salavat and Sterlitamak are important industrial cities in the Republic of Bashkortostan (Russia). The population of Salavat is more than 159,000 people, Sterlitamak -279,000. These towns are included in the Southern Bashkortostan urban agglomeration and are located in the Southern Urals on the border of the steppe and forest-steppe zones. The Urals are a mountain range that runs almost continuously along the 60°E meridian from the Arctic Ocean coast to the Ural River and north-western Kazakhstan. The Urals are an important botanical and geographical boundary of Northern Eurasia.

Design description:
The study of the flora and vegetation diversity of Salavat and Sterlitamak was carried out from 1999 to 2019 by Ya. Golovanov using route observation and sample plots. The main results and analytics were published in number of papers , Golovanov 2018). The datasets were prepared according to the data of field research (releves and species lists). Some species are deposited in the herbarium of South-Ural Botanical Garden Institute and Institute of Biology, Ufa Scientific Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences (UFA). These datasets include information on the occurrence of 292 species from 185 genera and 48 families. The total number of occurences is 5,462.

Sampling description:
Comprehensive studies of the flora and vegetation of cities were carried out in anthropogenic and natural habitats. Research routes covered all areas of the cities, as well as adjacent territories. Typical anthropogenic habitats include: railway stations, slopes of roads and railways, wastelands, construction sites, abandoned gardens, anthropogenic reservoirs, city yards and lawns. Such habitats are characterised by a high concentration of alien plant species. In these territories, releves of the main anthropogenic types of plant communities were carried out. The locations of individual alien plant species were recorded outside the sample plots. Routes were also mapped in the areas of natural vegetation: meadows, steppes, forests and their edges and banks of water reservoirs. In these territories, releves of plant communities were carried out, rare species of plants were recorded additionally. Releves were carried out on sample plots of various sizes (4-100 m ) depending on the boundaries of phytocoenoses in accordance with the methods of ecological-floristic classification of Braun-Blanquet. The scientific names of plants were adjusted in accordance with the International Plants Names Index (http://www.ipni.org).
Quality control: The identification of plants was carried out according to "Flora of the European part of the USSR"  and "Flora of Eastern Europe" (1996)(1997)(1998)(1999)(2000)(2001)(2002)(2003)(2004). All releves are included in the database of anthropogenic vegetation of the Urals and adjacent territories (http://www.givd.info/ID/00-RU-008), implemented using the TURBOVEG software (Hennekens and Schaminée 2001). Herbarium materials are stored in the South-Ural Botanical Garden Institute, Ufa Federal Scientific Centre, Russian Academy of Science and Ufa Institute of Biology, Ufa Federal Scientific Centre, Russian Academy of Science (UFA).

Geographic coverage
Description: The geographic coverage of the study included two cities, Serlitamak and Salavat, which are located in the Southern Urals on the border of the steppe and foreststeppe zones.
Sterlitamak -a city in the Republic of Bashkortostan, the administrative centre of the Sterlitamak District (since 1930), is located 121 km south of Ufa. Sterlitamak is located in the floodplain of the Belaya River, as well as its medium and small tributaries -the Ashkadar, Sterlya, Seleuk and Olkhovka Rivers. The population is 279 thousand people (as of 2016). The area of the city is 108.52 km², the population density is 2577.33 people/ km². The city is a major junction of the Ufa-Orenburg railway and republican and federal highways and one of the centres of the South Bashkortostan polycentric agglomeration. This territory has a powerful production potential with a total population of about 600 thousand people. Sterlitamak was founded in 1766 as the Ashkadar salt marina on the Sterlya River and was, at that time, in the territory of the Orenburg Province. In 1919-1922, Sterlitamak was the capital of the Autonomous Bashkir Soviet Republic, from 1920 -the centre of the Sterlitamak canton. With the discovery of oil near Ishimbay, the city became one of the strongholds for the development of oil fields. Now, Sterlitamak is a large centre of the chemical industry. In the territory of the city, there are large chemistry enterprises, as well as enterprises in the machine building industry.
Salavat was founded on 30 June 1948 as the village Novostroyka due to the construction of the petrochemical plant. In 1949, Salavat received the status of an industrial township and, in 1954, the status of a city. Currently, Gazprom Neftekhim Salavat is a major centre for the oil refining and petrochemical industries. In addition, there is a large glass factory (Salavatsteklo), as well as a plant for reinforced concrete and mineral wool products (Zykina 1998). Salavat is the third largest city of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The population is 156 thousand people. The length of the residential territory of the City along the Belaya River is 5.5 km, in width -2.7 km. In addition to the residential part, the large territory of the City is occupied by industrial and economic buildings. The area of the City together with industrial territories is 111.4 km². Communication routes significant for the Republic of Bashkortostan pass through the City of Salavat: the Ufa-Orenburg highway and the Salavat railway.
The main climatic characteristics of the cities are the following. The average annual air temperature here is 3.2°C, the average January temperature is -13.9°C, July is + 19.4°C, the sum of positive temperatures above 10°C is 2376°C. The average annual rainfall is 498.9 mm (Salavat) and 576 mm (Sterlitamak). The average precipitation equals 285 mm and 169 mm during the growing season and during the winter, respectively, snow cover height reaches 41 cm, soil freezing depth is 61 cm. The final spring frosts are observed in the second or third decade of May, the first autumn frost occur in the first or second decade of September. The frost-free period averages 128 days (Taichinov andBulchuk 1975, Yaparov 2005 Table 1.
Taxonomic distribution of the species and the species occurrences amongst the families in the datasets. The families are listed in descending order according to the total species number included in the datasets.