Introduction

The Prioksko-Terrasnyi Biosphere Reserve is located 80 km south of Moscow and is managed by the Federal State Budgetary Institution “Prioksko-Terrasnyi Nature Biosphere Reserve”. The Reserve was established on 19 June 1945; it occupies an area of 4960 hectares. According to the classification of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the Reserve belongs to the Ia category: Strict Nature Reserve (State Nature Reserve). The Reserve manages conservation and restoration of natural ecosystems, landscapes, rare and endangered species of plants and animals; preserves and studies unique meadow-steppe vegetation communities and floristic complexes, known as “the Oka River flora”; carries out long-term comprehensive environmental studies and environmental education. In addition, the Breeding Centre for European Bison has also functioned in the Reserve since 1948. The Reserve has been a part of the UNESCO World Network of Biosphere Reserves since 1979.

Vegetation studies have been carried out in this area even before the Reserve foundation. In 1861, Russian botanist Nikolay Kauffmann made the first flora observations (Kauffmann 1866). He was the first scientist to note the unusual presence of steppe vegetation along the Oka River in the midst of mixed coniferous and broad-leaf forest zone. In the following years, interest amongst botanists to this place increased, which finally led to establishing the Nature Reserve here in 1945. From 1945 to 2021, numerous vegetation studies have been undertaken (Smirnov 1958, Skvortsov 1969, Danilov et al. 1981, Danilov 1983, Levitskaya 1993, Smirnova and Popadyuk 1999, Zaugolnova 1999, Smirnova 2000, Khanina et al. 2000, Smirnov et al. 2001, Zaugolnova and Esipova 2000, Alekseev et al. 2004, Bobrovsky and Khanina 2004, Bobrovsky and Khanina 2005, Bobrovsky and Brynskikh 2005, Denisova and Bronnikova 2005, Popchenko 2011, Zelenskaya 2011, Andreeva and Mikhaleva 2012, Andreeva and Onipchenko 2012, Andreeva and Onipchenko 2015, Zelenskaya and Kerzhentsev 2015 and others). The first complete vegetation mapping of the Reserve was undertaken by the Oka complex expedition in 1949 (Prioksko-Terrasnyi Biosphere Reserve 1949). Revisions to the map and vegetation mapping of specific sites with steppe flora were done in later years (Prioksko-Terrasnyi Biosphere Reserve 1974, Prioksko-Terrasnyi Biosphere Reserve 1984b, Prioksko-Terrasnyi Biosphere Reserve 1984a) along with forest inventory mappings, which were repeated every 10-15 years. In 2015, the map of the “Groups of associations of current vegetation of the Prioksko-Terrasnyi Reserve” was developed as a part of the Reserve’s forest inventory (Prioksko-Terrasnyi Biosphere Reserve 2015).

Some of phytosociological data, collected in the Reserve, are already available through the European Vegetation Archive (EVA), which is a repository of vegetation plots from Europe and adjacent areas (Chytrý 2016). The database “Temperate Forests of European Russia” (Khanina and Bobrovsky 2018) includes relevés sampled by a large team under the guidance of Prof. Olga V. Smirnova and Prof. Ludmila B. Zaugolnova in the 1990s, temporary plots sampled in the Bison nursery by Mikhail Shovkun in 2001 (Shovkun 2003) and long-term surveys on permanent sampling plots, collected under the supervision of Prof. Vladimir Onipchenko (since 1991). Locations of these plots are shown in Fig. 1.

Figure 1.  

Locations of vegetation plots sampled during the previous studies in the Reserve. Reserve borders from World Resources Institute et al. 2012). Geographic database from OpenStrretMap (OpenStreetMap contributors 2015) via QGIS (QGIS Development Team 2020).

The presented data of 2019-2020 (Shovkun 2021) provide the results of renewed vegetation studies (Fig. 2). It is aimed at sampling vegetation data from the Reserve area with particular interest to sites with invasive species and sites with recent deadfall in the spruce stands caused by the bark beetle-typographer (Ips typographus (C. Linnaeus, 1758)). The vegetation data sampled there will provide insight into the processes of invasions and natural reforestation.

Figure 2.  

Locations of relevés sampled in 2019 and 2020 in the Reserve. Reserve borders from World Resources Institute et al. 2012). Geographic database from OpenStreetMap (OpenStreetMap contributors 2015) via QGIS (QGIS Development Team 2020).

General description

Project description

Sampling methods

Geographic coverage

Taxonomic coverage

Description: 

The dataset includes 564 unique scientific names, mainly of phylum Tracheophyta (542 taxa were identified to species and subspecies ranks and one taxon to genus rank only). We also recorded one species and one genus of phylum Marchantiophyta, four species and 15 genera of Bryophyta and one genus of Ascomycota. For these groups, only conspicuous taxa were counted, so these data are not complete. However, we include these occurrences in the dataset because GBIF data on these taxa are very limited.

During vegetation studies we counted occurrences of two vascular plant species included in the Red Data Book of the Russian Federation (Bardunov and Novikov 2008): Fritillaria ruthenica Wikstr. and Neottianthe cucullata (L.) Schltr. Moreover, we found 25 species from the Red Data Book of Moscow Region (Varlygina et al. 2018): Melica picta K.Koch, Fritillaria ruthenica Wikstr., Allium ursinum L., Iris sibirica L., Neottianthe cucullata (L.) Schltr., Platanthera chlorantha (Custer) Rchb., Aconitum nemorosum M.Bieb. ex Rchb., Clematis recta L., Pulsatilla patens (L.) Mill., Alyssum gmelinii Jord. & Fourr., Jovibarba sobolifera (J.Sims) Opiz, Cerasus fruticosa Pall., Rosa villosa L., Conioselinum tataricum Hoffm., Chimaphila umbellata (L.) W.P.C. Barton, Gentiana cruciata L., Pulmonaria angustifolia L., Dracocephalum ruyschiana L. , Pedicularis kaufmannii Pinzger, Scrophularia umbrosa Dumort., Crepis praemorsa (L.) Tausch, Ligularia sibirica (L.) Cass., Scorzonera humilis L., Serratula coronata L. and Veratrum nigrum L.

Additionally, we counted the number of alien plant species for the Reserve. These were Acer tataricum L., Acer negundo L., Malus prunifolia (Willd.) Borkh., Physocarpus opulifolius (L.) Maxim., Caragana arborescens Lam., Syringa vulgaris L., Solidago canadensis L., Solidago gigantea Aiton, Onobrychis arenaria (Kit.) DC., Allium ursinum L., Conyza canadensis (L.) Cronquist, Alkekengi officinarum Moench, Galega orientalis Lam., Heracleum sosnowskyi Manden. (Fig. 3), Aquilegia vulgaris L., Xanthoxalis fontana (Bunge) Holub, Torilis japonica (Houtt.) DC., Echinocystis lobata (Michx.) Torr. & A.Gray and Impatiens glandulifera Royle. The statements about whether a species has been introduced to the territory of the Reserve were described according to the Establishment Means Controlled Vocabulary (see dwc: establishmentMeans in the dataset) and to the Degree of Establishment Controlled Vocabulary (see dwc: degreeOfEstablishment). Note, dwc: as degreeOfEstablishment is currently not supported, these data will be available later.

Figure 3.  

Heracleum sosnowskyi at the dam across the Tadenka River. Photo by Mikhail Shovkun.

Traits coverage

Temporal coverage

Collection data

Usage licence

Data resources

Additional information

Acknowledgements

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Supplementary material