Biodiversity Data Journal :
Data Paper (Biosciences)
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Corresponding author: Anastasia Klenina (colubrida@yandex.ru)
Academic editor: Dmitry Schigel
Received: 26 Aug 2020 | Accepted: 12 Oct 2020 | Published: 30 Oct 2020
© 2020 Andrey Bakiev, Alexander Kirillov, Nadezhda Kirillova, Alexander Ruchin, Anastasia Klenina, Roman Gorelov, Natalya Kostina
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Bakiev A, Kirillov A, Kirillova N, Ruchin A, Klenina A, Gorelov R, Kostina N (2020) Reptile occurrences data in the Volga River basin (Russia). Biodiversity Data Journal 8: e58033. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e58033
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The Volga basin is one of the most industrially-developed regions of Russia with a high degree of anthropogenic impact on natural ecosystems. Human influence negatively affects the species diversity and number of animals, including reptiles. There are no endemic species in the reptile fauna of the Volga basin. The herpetofauna of the region makes up 25% of the reptile fauna of Russia (
Our dataset contains information on reptile occurrences in the Volga River basin. The dataset is based on original research by the staff of the Laboratory of Herpetology and Toxinology and Laboratory of Population Ecology of the Institute of Ecology of the Volga River basin of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Joint Directorate of the Mordovia State Nature Reserve and National Park “Smolny”. A total of 5,086 occurrences of 20 species are published for the first time with georeferencing. Many of these reptiles are listed in regional Red Data Lists. The European Pond Turtle Emys orbicularis (Linnaeus, 1758) is included in the IUCN Red List with the category “Near Threatened”.
Agamidae, Anguidae, Boidae, Colubridae, Emydidae, Gekkonidae, Lacertidae, Lamprophiidae, Reptilia, Viperidae
The Volga is the longest river in Europe and the 16th largest in the world with 3690 km in length (
The first data about the reptiles of the Volga basin appeared in the 10th century (
Adam Olshlegel (
The main composition of the herpetofauna of the Volga basin was established by the participants of the 1768-1774 academic expedition: P.S. Pallas (
Specialists from the Institute of Ecology of the Volga River basin of Russian Academy of Sciences began the study of the herpetofauna of the region in 1984, when the Institute was founded (
The purpose of this paper is to describe a dataset on occurrences of reptiles in the Volga River basin (European Russia) recently published by us in GBIF as a Darwin Core Archive (
Reptile occurrences data in the Volga River basin (Russia).
Alexander Kirillov, Nadezhda Kirillova, Andrey Bakiev, Alexander Ruchin, Anastasiya Klenina, Roman Gorelov, Natalya Kostina.
The Volga River basin is situated in the Russian Plain – centre of European Russia. Water resources of the Volga basin account for only about 5% of the water resources of all Russia. The Volga riverbed and its tributaries are located along the lowlands and only in some places the river passes through the hills (Zhiguli Hills on the Samarskaya Luka). A network of reservoirs has been created on the Volga and its tributaries. There are eight very large reservoirs only on the Volga itself. This determines the configuration of the Volga basin as a whole: below the confluence of the Volga with the Kama, the formation of the lateral inflow practically ends (
The Volga basin is divided into three regions named as the Upper, Middle and Lower Volga. Gorky and Zhigulevskaya dams are considered the borders of the Upper and Middle Volga and the Middle and Lower Volga, respectively. The Volga basin covers various latitudinal climatic zones. The large extent of the Volga basin from north to south is characterised by a change in biomes from taiga to semi-desert. There is a forest belt on the north of the Volga basin formed by southern taiga and mixed coniferous-deciduous forest. To the south of the forest belt, there is a forest-steppe biome. Biomes of steppes, semi-deserts and deserts are located in the extreme south of the Volga basin. The desert biome is adjacent to the southern part of the Akhtuba River floodplain near the Caspian lowlands (
The climate of the Upper Volga basin is moderate continental, characterised by cold winters and relatively warm summers. The climate of the Middle Volga region is similar to the climate of the Upper Volga region in winter, but the summer climate is less variable. The climate of the Lower Volga region is predominantly continental, characterised by hot summers and relatively short, but cold winters (
The study of the distribution of reptiles in the Volga basin was carried out during field scientific expeditions by manual capture and species identification of the encountered individuals. Since 2002, the number of original studies of reptiles in the region has increased (Fig.
The dataset is based on personal records from field diaries, some of them having been published earlier, but schematically and without a geographical coordinate reference (
Most of the data was collected by herpetologists. The rest of the data was identified by herpetologists from the Institute of Ecology of the Volga River Basin of RAS from photographs we received from amateur naturalists.
The fields’ names of the dataset were chosen according to Darwin Core (
The geographical reference, in most cases, was carried out by determining the coordinates of the finding place of reptiles using a GPS navigator. In other cases, where the geographical coordinates were not obtained using a GPS navigator, but there were original data about the reptile finding places, we determined the coordinates using Google maps (https://www.google.ru/maps/). The margin of error in the measurement of coordinates is 10 m. The accuracy of determining coordinates is up to the fourth digit. In all cases, the WGS-84 coordinate system is used.
The Volga River basin is located in the Russian Plain (Fig.
45°40'48'' and 60°26'49.2'' Latitude; 57°24'21.6'' and 34°8'16.8'' Longitude.
All reptile individuals were identified to the species level. The database contains 20 species, belonging to nine reptile families (Fig.
Rank | Scientific Name | Common Name |
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phylum | Chordata | chordates |
class | Reptilia | reptiles |
order | Squamata | squamates |
order | Testudines | turtles |
family | Agamidae | agamids |
family | Anguidae | anguids |
family | Boidae | boid snakes |
family | Colubridae | colubrid |
family | Emydidae | pond turtles |
family | Gekkonidae | geckos |
family | Lacertidae | lacertas |
family | Lamprophiidae | lamprophiids |
family | Viperidae | vipers |
species | Emys orbicularis (Linnaeus, 1758) | European pond turtle |
species | Alsophylax pipiens (Pallas, 1814) | even-fingered gecko |
species | Phrynocephalus guttatus (Gmelin, 1789) | spotted toadhead agama |
species | Phrynocephalus helioscopus Pallas, 1771 | sunwatcher toadhead agama |
species | Phrynocephalus mystaceus (Pallas, 1776) | secret toadhead agama |
species | Anguis colchica (Nordmann, 1840) | slowworm |
species | Eremias arguta Pallas, 1773 | steppe-runner |
species | Eremias velox Pallas, 1771 | rapid racerunner |
species | Lacerta agilis Linnaeus, 1758 | sand lizard |
species | Zootoca vivipara (Lichtenstein, 1823) | viviparous lizard |
species | Eryx miliaris (Pallas, 1773) | desert sand boa |
species | Coronella austriaca Laurenti, 1778 | smooth snake |
species | Elaphe dione (Pallas, 1773) | Pallas’ coluber |
species | Elaphe sauromates (Pallas, 1814) | Sarmatian rat snake |
species | Hierophis caspius (Gmelin, 1789) | Caspian whipsnake |
species | Natrix natrix (Linnaeus, 1758) | grass snake |
species | Natrix tessellata (Laurenti, 1768) | dice snake |
species | Malpolon monspessulanus (Hermann, 1804) | Montpellier snake |
species | Vipera berus (Linnaeus, 1758) | common European viper |
species | Vipera renardi (Christoph, 1861) | steppe viper |
Our dataset contains information on reptile occurrences in the Volga River basin, located in the Russian Plain, European Russia. The dataset is based on our own research by the staff of the Laboratory of Herpetology and Toxinology and Laboratory of Population Ecology of the Institute of Ecology of the Volga River basin of the Russian Academy of Sciences and Joint Directorate of the Mordovia State Nature Reserve and National Park “Smolny”. The dataset summarises reptile occurrences noted by field studies in various areas of the Volga River basin from 1988 to 2020. The dataset consists of 5,086 occurrence records, all of them being georeferenced. A total of 20 reptile species belonging to 14 genera and nine families are reported in the Volga River basin, although the distribution of reptile species in this region of Russia has not yet been fully studied.
Column label | Column description |
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occurrenceID | An identifier for the Occurrence (as opposed to a particular digital record of the occurrence). |
basisOfRecord | Recommended best practice is to use the standard label of one of the Darwin Core classes. |
scientificName | The full scientific name, with authorship and date information, if known. When forming part of an Identification, this should be the name in the lowest level taxonomic rank that can be determined. This term should not contain identification qualifications, which should instead be supplied in the IdentificationQualifier term. |
kingdom | The full scientific name of the kingdom in which the taxon is classified. |
phylum | The full scientific name of the phylum or division 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. |
geodeticDatum | The ellipsoid, geodetic datum or spatial reference system (SRS) upon which the geographic coordinates given in decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude are based. |
coordinateUncertaintyInMetres | The horizontal distance (in metres) from the given decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude describing the smallest circle containing the whole of the Location. Leave the value empty if the uncertainty is unknown, cannot be estimated or is not applicable (because there are no coordinates). Zero is not a valid value for this term. |
coordinatePrecision | A decimal representation of the precision of the coordinates given in the decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude. |
decimalLatitude | The geographic latitude (in decimal degrees, using the spatial reference system given in geodeticDatum) of the geographic centre of a Location. Positive values are north of the Equator, negative values are south of it. Legal values lie between -90 and 90, inclusive. |
decimalLongitude | The geographic longitude (in decimal degrees, using the spatial reference system given in geodeticDatum) of the geographic centre of a Location. Positive values are east of the Greenwich Meridian, negative values are west of it. Legal values lie between -180 and 180, inclusive. |
country | The name of the country or major administrative unit in which the Location occurs. |
countryCode | The standard code for the country in which the Location occurs. |
individualCount | The number of individuals represented present at the time of the Occurrence. |
eventDate | The date-time or interval during which an Event occurred. For occurrences, this is the date-time when the event was recorded. Not suitable for a time in a geological context. |
recordedBy | A person, group or organisation responsible for recording the original Occurrence. |
identifiedBy | A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups or organisations who assigned the Taxon to the subject. |
The research was carried out within the framework of the research topic “Ecological patterns of sustainable functioning of ecosystems and the potential resources of the Volga basin” AAAA-A17-117112040039-7 of the Institute of Ecology of the Volga River basin, a branch of the Samara Federal Research Center of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
A. Bakiev – reptile sample collection, species identification, georeferencing, manuscript editing
A. Kirillov – reptile sample collection, species identification, georeferencing, data preparation, manuscript editing
N. Kirillova – reptile sample collection, species identification, data preparation, manuscript editing
A. Ruchin – reptile sample collection, species identification, georeferencing, data preparation
A. Klenina – reptile sample collection, species identification, data preparation, manuscript editing
R. Gorelov – reptile sample collection, species identification, data preparation, georeferencing
N. Kostina – manuscript editing