Biodiversity Data Journal :
Data Paper (Biosciences)
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Corresponding author: Mikhail N. Kozhin (mnk_umba@mail.ru)
Academic editor: Ivan Chadin
Received: 16 Oct 2020 | Accepted: 27 Nov 2020 | Published: 02 Dec 2020
© 2020 Mikhail Kozhin, Alexander Sennikov
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:
Kozhin MN, Sennikov AN (2020) Vascular Plant Herbarium at the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve (KAND), Russia. Biodiversity Data Journal 8: e59731. https://doi.org/10.3897/BDJ.8.e59731
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The present-day demand for digital availability of distributional data in biodiversity studies requires a special effort in assembling and editing the data otherwise scattered in paper literature and herbarium collections, which can be poorly accessible or little understood to present-day users and especially automatic data processors. Our project on developing the information resource for the vascular plant flora of Murmansk Region, Russia, includes processing and making digitally available all the data on the taxonomy and distribution of this flora. So far, published distribution maps are limited to the old set in the Flora of Murmansk Region (published in 1953–1966) and the Red Data Book of Murmansk Region (ed. 2, published in 2014). These publications did not take into account the main part of the herbarium collections kept at the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve, which are the basis for numerous local publications that appear scattered and, therefore, little accessible nowadays.
We present a complete dataset of all holdings of vascular plants in the Herbarium of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve, totalling 10,218 specimens collected during 1947–2019, which are referable to 764 species and 19 subspecies. All specimens were georeferenced with the utmost precision available. This dataset offers a complete and dense coverage of the Nature Reserve's territory (islands and adjacent mainland coastal areas of the Barents and White Seas, Murmansk Region and Republic of Karelia, Russia); these data are little represented in herbarium collections elsewhere.
angiosperms, Barents Sea, databasing, ferns, gymnosperms, Kola Peninsula, Murmansk Region, lycophytes, plant distribution, Republic of Karelia, Russian Lapland, White Sea
Nature protection requires complete and up-to-date inventories of the protected object. Inventories are based on vouchers, which support the research and ensure the opportunity for quality control in future studies (
The Herbarium of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve (KAND) is a curated scientific collection that is a repository for voucher specimens (mostly vascular plants, but also cyanoprokaryotes, lichens, fungi, algae, mosses and livervorts) collected in the Nature Reserve and its adjacent areas. With its 80-years-long history, the Herbarium contains ca. 16,000 specimens. These holdings place the Herbarium fourth amongst the botanical collections of Russian nature reserves and 85th among all registered Russian collections (according to Index Herbariorum, http://sweetgum.nybg.org/science/ih/).
Currently, the KAND herbarium is one of the key botanical collections from Murmansk Region of Russia. Despite its importance, the collection is little accessible due to its remote location in Kandalaksha, a small town in northern Russia, far away from major botanical centres with taxonomic activities (like Komarov Botanical Institute or Moscow State University). Another factor hindering the use of its collection was the former lack of curation and, consequently, the insufficient level of accessioning of older collections.
When the collections became completely and properly organised, it was considered timely to include the KAND Herbarium into global information systems, in order to make it accessible to the public and involved in modern biodiversity research projects. The present contribution aims at bringing the distributional data accumulated in the Nature Reserve to the public; besides, it complements the distributional dataset derived from the Flora of Murmansk Region (
The present article aimed at digital representation and making publicly available the data on the distribution of vascular plants from the herbarium collection of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve.
Origin of collections
The Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve was founded in 1932 as a legally-protected area and a research institution aimed at monitoring and studying animals and plants of that area (
The original purpose of the Nature Reserve was the protection and study of the common eider, Somateria mollissima, to protect its nesting places and to regulate the exploitation of its valuable down (
The first botanical collection for the Nature Reserve was made during the dissertation study by N.S. Parfentieva, who started mass gathering of dried plants during her employment in 1949–1950 and continued sporadically in 1958 and 1959 (
In 1957 and 1959, a similar study was performed on the islands along the southern coast of the White Sea by G.M. Sinkova (
Minor botanical collections were made by zoologists employed at the Nature Reserve. For example, T.V. Koshkina collected some specimens during 1952–1956, which were amongst the early collections from the White and Barents Seas (
An important source of collections was student summer camps organised by the Department of Vascular Plants of the Moscow State University since the 1960s. In those years, the student expeditions, led by V.N. Vekhov (assistant professor) and N.E. Bogdanova (technical assistant), explored the Kem-Ludy Archipelago in 1962 (
The greatest contribution to the collections and the study of vascular plants of the Nature Reserve was made by I.P. Breslina. She performed a study of the flora and vegetation of the Kandalaksha Skerries of the White Sea in 1963–1966 (
After Breslina had been fired from her position of scientist at the Nature Reserve at the end of the 1960s, she took the position of forest ranger for the Kem-Ludy Archipelago, but her collecting activity was interrupted. In 1976, Breslina accepted a scientific position at KPABG where she continued her botanical studies on the islands of the White Sea. In 1977–1978 and 1984–1987, Breslina extensively studied the islands in the Porya Bay (
Breslina’s successor, V.A. Tsarkova (
The territory of the Nature Reserve was continuously expanding to include new patches of protected land. Floristic inventories were required to cover the newly-acquired territories. This work was performed by E.G. Vorobieva, who was employed as a botanist during 1975–1994. Between 1976 and 1989, she studied the flora of the Luvenga, Olenii (
In the same period of time, the Nature Reserve employed another botanist, A.B. Georgievskii, who mostly studied plant communities and vegetation. In 1977, he explored the Gavrilov Islands (
Between 1990 and the beginning of the 2000s, the Nature Reserve was in a period of scientific inactivity due to limited funding. During this period, only minor botanical collections originated from the vicinities of Dalnie Zelentsy and the Gavrilov Archipelago by T.D. Paneva, M.Yu. Kupryukhina, D.M. Gerasimov and A.D. Vital (
There was a long-term exploration and monitoring of the flora and vegetation of the Kem-Ludy Islands made by pupils and teachers of the Moscow Grammar School 1543, as well as students of the Moscow State University, which took place during 2001–2017 (
In the 2000s, N.G. Panarina (Khrenova) continued her studies on the flora of the islands of the Kandalaksha Bay, which were started in the 1980s and culminated with her PhD degree (
In the 2000s, new botanists were employed at the Nature Reserve. During 2002–2004, V.N. Zherikhina (Plyusnina) studied the islands of the Severnyi Archipelago (
Since 2008, M.N. Kozhin took the position of botanist at the Nature Reserve and the collection work has been considerably intensified. He studied the flora and vegetation in all parts of the White Sea area in the Nature Reserve. During these works, in 2006 and 2008, he focused on the flora of the Turii Mys with the assistance of students of the Faculty of Geography of the Moscow State University (T.S. Grevizirskaya and N.A. Zhorov). Targeted collections of sedges (Carex sp.) were made in 2007 in the Kandalaksha Bay. The most active floristic exploration took place in the Porya Bay during 2009–2014 (
At the same period, in 2011–2013, E.O. Golovina (Komarov Botanical Institute) studied plant communities on the islands of the Porya Bay and the Srednie Ludy Islands. In 2017, M.N. Kozhin organised an expedition to the islands of the Olenii, Severnyi and Kibrinskii archipelagos and to Molochnitsa Island near the Kovda Peninsula, with participation of E.O. Golovina, S.A. Kutenkov (Institute of Biology, Petrozavodsk) and D.A. Zakharchenko (student of the Department of Plant Ecology, Moscow State University).
In the latest decade, students from the Moscow State University actively and regularly visited the Nature Reserve. In 2009 and 2010, E.A. Gryaznova collected nearly 150 specimens in the vicinity of Luvenga. Since 2012, a student summer camp has been organised by M.N. Kozhin in a few areas of the Kandalaksha Bay. Some students, supervised by Kozhin, based their work at the Nature Reserve: E.I. Vuzman worked on the islands of the Luvenga Archipelago in 2016–2019 (
Altogether, ca. 4,000 herbarium specimens have been collected since 2008. These collections were deposited at KAND (ca. 1,500 specimens), MW, H and KPABG.
History of collection
The herbarium collection, as a separate scientific item, was established by N.S. Parfentieva in 1949 (
During the next decades, despite the high intensity of inventories in the Nature Reserve, the accessions did not grow actively, because the new collections were largely left unorganised. By 1983, the number of specimens included in the collections was 2651 only (
During the 2000s, herbarium curation in the Nature Reserve was resumed due to the active supervision of A.S. Koryakin, vice-director of the Reserve (
Databasing of the herbarium collection
The first attempt to make a catalogue of herbarium collections in the Nature Reserve dates back to the 1960s. The information was recorded on paper cards, including species name, locality, habitat, collection date and number of duplicates. This work embraced the specimens collected from Velikii Island and the Severnyi Archipelago, but other parts of the collection were left unfinished. Besides, there were attempts to catalogue specimens collected by certain expeditions: 116 herbarium specimens collected by N.V. Koshkina in Ponoi were catalogued but not preserved, perhaps because of being extraterritorial and thus irrelevant to the Nature Reserve.
A new, complete catalogue on paper cards was compiled by E.G. Vorobieva in 1975–1976, which included species names and localities. This catalogue has never been updated.
Since the mid-1990s, the Nature Reserve prioritised electronic databasing of all the vast information accumulated in the Nature Reserve. The databasing of the herbarium of vascular plants has been in effect since 2007, when M.N. Kozhin started to record the information from the publicly-accessible collection and to organise its previously unaccessioned and newly arrived parts (Fig.
Vascular Plant Herbarium at the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve (KAND), Russia
Mikhail N. Kozhin (project leader, collection identifier, data collector, data manager).
Alexander N. Sennikov (collection identifier, data collector, data manager).
Andrey V. Matveev (developer, web-designer).
Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve is located in the northwest of European Russia and consists of 13 separate areas (Fig.
This territory lies almost completely north of the Arctic Circle and its climate is mostly subarctic with a minor influence of the polar climate along the northern coast and in the northern islands (
The current project aims at digital representation and publication of the data on the distribution of vascular plants as represented in the Herbarium of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve. Data from herbarium specimens were captured into the database and complemented with georeferences (Suppl. material
The Nature Reserve offers a good representation of the territory of Murmansk Region, covering a number of areas situated in various parts of the territory, with emphasis on coastal areas. Sampling density and coverage in these areas is high and the covered territory has a special value in nature protection and monitoring. Most of the databased specimens are unique, i.e. not represented by duplicates in other herbarium collections.
The dataset has been prepared in the course of a complete inventory of herbarium collections of vascular plants of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve. The information on the specimen identity and the history of identifications, locality, collection date and collector was captured from mostly handwritten herbarium labels and recorded into a spreadsheet of MS Excel. When in doubt, localities, collection dates and collector names were verified against historical documents kept in the archive of the Nature Reserve.
Specimens were georeferenced using Google Maps or Yandex Maps. Local toponyms were traced using printed large scale topographic and marine maps, Hydrographical description of the White Sea, forest inventory maps for 1976–1977 and 2016 and records in the archive of the Nature Reserve. Georeferencing generally followed the Georeferencing Quick Reference Guide (
The dataset was incorporated into the database of the project ‘Flora of Russian Lapland’ (https://laplandflora.ru/), which is maintained at the Moscow State University.
The original identification, when available, was verified for each specimen. Recognised taxonomic experts were involved in difficult cases: Yu.A. Alexeev, K.P. Glazunova, V.S. Novikov (Moscow State University), A.A. Bobrov (Institute for Biology of Inland Waters, Borok), P.G. Efimov and N.N. Tzvelev (Komarov Botanical Institute). Identifications in apomictic groups (Hieracium, Ranunculus auricomus s.l., Taraxacum) remain incomplete.
The Herbarium of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve possesses specimens collected in Murmansk Region and northern Karelia, Russia. The greatest amount of specimens (84.25%) originated from the territory of the Nature Reserve.
The land size of the Nature Reserve totals 20,947 ha. This figure has never been stable; during its history, the territory of the Nature Reserve fluctuated significantly, mostly with expansion by gradual inclusion of new areas or some extra land (islands or mainland coast) adjacent to the existing protected areas (
The territory of the Nature Reserve is subdivided into four forest districts ('lesnichestvo' in Russian), of which three are situated on the White Sea and one is located on the Barents Sea. Herbarium collections are organised according to these forest districts (Table
Number of herbarium specimens collected in forest districts of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve and their adjacent areas
Territory |
Number of specimens |
Percentage |
Strictly protected areas |
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Barents Sea forest district |
1746 |
17.09 |
Severnoe forest district |
2613 |
25.56 |
Velikii Island forest district |
2105 |
20.6 |
Terskoe forest district |
2144 |
20.98 |
Adjacent areas |
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Adjacent area of Barents Sea forest district |
555 |
5.43 |
Adjacent area of Severnoe forest district |
549 |
5.36 |
Adjacent area of Velikii Island forest district |
142 |
1.39 |
Adjacent area of Terskoe forest district |
365 |
3.57 |
Total |
10218 |
100 |
The Barents Sea Forest District is made up of three areas. The Ainovy Islands (Fig.
Areas of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve: characteristics and number of vascular plant specimens at KAND
Area |
Strict protection date (second date denotes expansion) |
Land size, ha |
Number of islands |
Number of specimens |
Percentage |
Ainovy Islands |
1947 |
317 |
2 |
347 |
4.03 |
Gavrilov Archipelago |
1969, 1991 |
95 |
14 |
151 |
1.75 |
Sem Ostrovov Archipelago and neighbouring territories |
1938, 1947 |
3460 |
19 |
1248 |
14.5 |
Luvenga Archipelago |
1967 |
413 |
42 |
535 |
6.22 |
Olenii Archipelago |
1967 |
1452 |
72 |
672 |
7.81 |
Severnyi Archipelago |
1932 |
1437 |
80 |
1315 |
15.28 |
Kibrinskii Archipelago |
1967 |
71 |
5 |
90 |
1.05 |
Tarasikha Archipelago |
1967 |
79 |
12 |
203 |
2.36 |
Vachev Archipelago |
1967 |
185 |
5 |
49 |
0.57 |
Velikii Island and neighbouring territories |
1940, 1967 |
11004 |
78 |
1549 |
18 |
Kem-Ludy Archipelago |
1957 |
451 |
28 |
304 |
3.53 |
Porya Bay Islands |
1967, 1977 |
1154 |
222 |
1808 |
21.01 |
Turii Mys |
1977 |
829 |
0 |
336 |
3.9 |
Total |
1932–1991 |
20947 |
579 |
8607 |
100 |
In the White Sea, the greatest number of specimens originated from the Severnoe Forest District (Fig.
The Velikii Island Forest District is situated south of the Severnoe Forest District (Table
Kem-Ludy Archipelago (protected since 1957), a southern extension of the Velikii Island Forest District, is the only part of the Nature Reserve situated in northern Karelia. This territory is well sampled, but most of the relevant herbarium specimens are kept at MW due to the botanical research conducted by students and teachers of the Moscow State University.
The Terskoe Forest District is situated eastof the Severnoe Forest District and includes two separate areas, Porya Bay and Turii Mys. At present, the territory of the Porya Bay is best sampled with herbarium specimens in the Nature Reserve (Table
A significant amount of herbarium specimens at KAND (15.75%) was collected from the territories immediately adjacent to strictly protected areas. Many of such specimens were collected in the vicinity of Dalnie Zelentsy near the limits of the Barents Sea Forest District (Table
66.41 and 69.84 Latitude; 31.55 and 37.81 Longitude.
The dataset covers all taxonomic groups traditionally treated as vascular plants, i.e. Lycopodiophyta, Pteridophyta (incl. Pteridopsida and Equisetopsida) and spermatophytes (incl. Magnoliophyta and Pinophyta), which were collected and stored at the Herbarium of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve (KAND). Altogether the collection is represented by 80 families, 307 genera, 764 species and 19 subspecies of vascular plants. The most species-rich families are Asteraceae (82), Poaceae (73), Cyperaceae (70), Rosaceae (51) and Caryophyllaceae (38).
In the herbarium collections, plant names are accepted according to
The dynamics of collecting activities in the Nature Reserve has been highly uneven (Fig.
Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License
Column label | Column description |
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occurrenceID | An identifier for the Occurrence (as opposed to a particular digital record of the occurrence). In the absence of a persistent global unique identifier, construct one from a combination of identifiers in the record that will most closely make the occurrenceID globally unique |
institutionCode | The name (or acronym) in use by the institution having custody of the object(s) or information referred to in the record [KAND] |
catalogNumber | An identifier (preferably unique) for the record within the dataset or collection |
basisOfRecord | The specific nature of the data record [PreservedSpecimen = herbarium specimen] |
recordNumber | An identifier given to the Occurrence at the time it was recorded. Often serves as a link between field notes and an Occurrence record, such as a specimen collector's number |
scientificName | The full scientific name, with authorship and date information if known. When forming part of an Identification, this should be the name in lowest level taxonomic rank that can be determined. This term should not contain identification qualifications, which should instead be supplied in the IdentificationQualifier term |
taxonRank | The taxonomic rank of the most specific name in the scientificName |
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 |
taxonRemarks | Comments or notes about the taxon or name |
countryCode | The standard code for the country in which the Location occurs [RU] |
stateProvince | The full, unabbreviated name of the next smaller administrative region than stateProvince (county, shire, department etc.) in which the Location occurs |
municipality | The full, unabbreviated name of the next smaller administrative region than county (city, municipality etc.) in which the Location occurs. Do not use this term for a nearby named place that does not contain the actual location. |
verbatimLocality | The original textual description of the place |
habitat | A category or description of the habitat in which the Event occurred |
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 |
geodeticDatum | The ellipsoid, geodetic datum or spatial reference system (SRS) upon which the geographic coordinates given in decimalLatitude and decimalLongitude as based [WGS 84] |
coordinateUncertaintyInMeters | 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 |
verbatimElevation | The original description of the elevation (altitude, usually above sea level) of the Location |
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 |
year | The four-digit year in which the Event occurred, according to the Common Era Calendar |
month | The integer month in which the Event occurred |
day | The integer day of the month on which the Event occurred |
recordedBy | A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups or organisations responsible for recording the original Occurrence. The primary collector or observer, especially one who applies a personal identifier (recordNumber), should be listed first. |
identifiedBy | A list (concatenated and separated) of names of people, groups or organisations who assigned the Taxon to the subject |
datasetName | The name identifying the dataset from which the record was derived |
language | A language of the resource [Russian] |
license | A legal document giving official permission to do something with the resource [Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License] |
references | A related resource that is referenced, cited or otherwise pointed to by the described resource |
The work of M.N. Kozhin was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, grant #19-77-00025.
We are obliged to the staff of the Kandalaksha Strict Nature Reserve (Tatiana D. Paneva, Ekaterina L. Tolmacheva and Elena V. Shutova) for research support and detailed advice on place names. We are grateful to Eugenii A. Borovichev for his help in searching for historical material in the archive of the Kola Scientific Centre (Apatity) and Olga V. Petrova for design of maps. We also thank Elena G. Vorobieva for discussing the history of botanical research in the Nature Reserve.
Our special thanks go to the late Alexander S. Koryakin, formerly vice-director of the Kandalaksha Nature Reserve, who initiated the development of the herbarium database in the Nature Reserve and constantly provided all kinds of support to our work.