Century-long Dynamics of Meadow Steppes in the Privolzhskaya Uplands

Information on the structure and dynamics of the zonal Central Russian meadow steppes is presented in terms of the example of the Privolzhskaya forest-steppe state nature reserve (Penza region, Russia). The cenotic diversity of the herbaceous vegetation of the reserve is represented by 91 associations, of which 48 referto steppes and 43 to steppe meadows. It has been revealed that the vegetation of the studied placer sites under the influence of an absolutely reserved regime undergoes mesophyticization and silvatization, which are more intensively manifested in the forest-steppe landscapes of the secondary moraine plains (areas of thePoperechenskaya steppe and Ostrovtsovskaya forest-steppe reserve) than in the eroded denudational plains of forest-steppe landscapes (areas of the Kuncherovskaya steppe and Ostrovtsovskaya forest-steppe reserves). The study of the dynamics of zonal meadow steppes in the Volga Uplands testifies to the inevitability of theirtransformation in modern climatic conditions into meadow, shrubby and even forest communities. Keywords: forest-steppe, meadow steppes, structure, dynamics, succession, reserve, geobotanical mapping, protection of steppe vegetatio

The political economy of the disability insurance: theory and evidence of gubernatorial learning

Abstract The dramatic rise in the disability insurance (DI) rolls in the last 20 years has been the subject of much controversy. While the relationship between DI and labor force participation has been the subject of a growing literature, the mechanism of this transition from employment to DI remains unclear. We hypothesize that one mechanism is the state-level administration of the program which creates a classic principal-agent problem. We analyze the conflict of interests for Disability Determination Services agencies between Social Security Administration (SSA) standards and state gubernatorial political interests interacted with the increased demand for disability insurance as an alternative for low-skilled employment during the period of 1982 to 2013. We find evidence that multi-term governors allow a greater fraction of applicants than do first-term governors, but only up to year 2000, when allowance rates started to decrease over time. We develop a model that illustrates how these differences can be due to the type of monitoring conducted by the SSA. We provide additional evidence supporting this hypothesis analyzing how the effects interact with economic and political constraints. JEL codes H55, I18, I38, G22</jats:p

Distribution of Alien Plant Species of the Middle Volga Region (South-East of the European Part of Russia): a Dataset

Background The dataset presented in the current study contains information regarding alien vascularplant species found in the Middle Volga Region (South-East of the European part ofRussia). The dataset overall includes 413 species belonging to 247 genera and 67families. The described dataset is based on the data published during floristic studies from1851 to 2019. The dataset does not include alien vascular plant species that havepresently disappeared from the territory of the region. It contains a total of 7,782 records ofoccurrences, extracted from the Salix system of information and analytics, developed in theInstitute of Ecology of the Volga River Basin of the Russian Academy of Sciences.New informationA total of 7,782 records were published on the occurrence of alien vascular plants in theMiddle Volga Region. Each entry includes information regarding the place of occurrence ofthe alien plant species, the year of occurrence, the person who recorded the alien plantand who identified it, status of the species (introduced or invasive), link to the herbarium,which contains the specimen and the literary source. If it were impossible to establish thenames of the persons who collected the samples and (or) their identification in theidentifiedBy and recordedBy fields, the names of the authors of the publication given in theassociatedReferences field were entered. The presented dataset supplements theinformation on the distribution of alien plant species in the whole European part of Russiaand specifies the places of their findings in the Middle Volga Region © Senator S et al. 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.Funding: This work was supported by the Competitiveness of the Ural Federal University (Russian Federation Government Regulation no. 211, contract no. 02. A03.21.0006)

Alien Species in the Flora of the Middle Volga Region

The article presents information on the diversity and structure of the alien flora of the Middle Volga region on the border between the steppe and forest-steppe zones of the European botanical and geographical province. In the studied area, we identified 440 alien species of plants (24.6% of the total floristic diversity), including 59 invasive and potentially invasive species, the dispersal of which has already caused environmental consequences or could become a threat in the future. According to the degree of naturalization, alien plant species among the regional flora are represented by 146 ephemerophytes (33.2%), 122 colonophytes (27.7%), 151 epecophytes (34.3%) and 21 agriophytes (4.8%). As verified via the main method of skidding, alien species are distributed almost equally – 228 xenophytes (51.8%) and 212 ergasiophygophytes (48.2%). It was revealed that of the 150 species of alien plants, there are only 84 of the most common European species in the Middle Volga region, most of which do not show high cenotic activity. The obtained results actualize the development of a system of ecological and economic assessment of the consequences of introducing alien plant species into regional flora. Keywords: alien plants, invasive species, Middle Volga region, regional flor

Урбанофлористика в России: современное состояние и перспективы

An overview of Russian literature sources of urban flora studies. The authors analyze the history of urban floral research in Russia and provide definitions of terms - urban flora, native, indigenous, apophytic, alien, synanthropic species. The overview provides a description of methods and approaches used in different studies of urban flora. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the biological diversity of native and alien plants and the features of their spatial distribution in urban habitats. The authors raise problems of protection of biodiversity in cities and show the role of urban protected natural areas. The conclusion of the work outlines the prospects for further study of urban flora. The authors highlight an importance and necessity of creation of a unified database of vascular plants in the urbanized territories of Russia. Further usage of the database will allow to conduct a comparative analysis of the species composition of urban flora and to identify the degree of their homogenization and originality. © 2021 Altai State University. All rights reserved

Determinants of urinary albumin excretion within the normal range in patients with type 2 diabetes: the Randomised Olmesartan and Diabetes Microalbuminuria Prevention (ROADMAP) study

In contrast to microalbuminuric type 2 diabetic patients, the factors correlated with urinary albumin excretion are less well known in normoalbuminuric patients. This may be important because even within the normoalbuminuric range, higher rates of albuminuria are known to be associated with higher renal and cardiovascular risk. At the time of screening for the Randomised Olmesartan and Diabetes Microalbuminuria Prevention (ROADMAP) Study, the urinary albumin/creatinine ratio (UACR) was 0.44 mg/mmol in 4,449 type 2 diabetic patients. The independent correlates of UACR were analysed. Independent correlates of UACR during baseline were (in descending order): night-time systolic BP (r (s) = 0.19); HbA(1c) (r (s) = 0.18); mean 24 h systolic BP (r (s) = 0.16); fasting blood glucose (r (s) = 0.16); night-time diastolic BP (r (s) = 0.12); office systolic BP, sitting (r (s) = 0.11), standing (r (s) = 0.10); estimated GFR (r (s) = 0.10); heart rate, sitting (r (s) = 0.10); haemoglobin (r (s) = -0.10); triacylglycerol (r (s) = 0.09); and uric acid (r (s) = -0.08; all p a parts per thousand currency signaEuro parts per thousand 0.001). Significantly higher albumin excretion rates were found for the following categorical variables: higher waist circumference (more marked in men); presence of the metabolic syndrome; smoking (difference more marked in males); female sex; antihypertensive treatment; use of amlodipine; insulin treatment; family history of diabetes; and family history of cardiovascular disease (more marked in women). Although observational correlations do not prove causality, in normoalbuminuric type 2 diabetic patients the albumin excretion rate is correlated with many factors that are potentially susceptible to intervention. ClinicalTrials.gov ID no.: NCT00185159 This study was sponsored by Daichii-Sankyo.Nephrolog

A global synthesis of naturalised and invasive plants in aquatic habitats

Global databases have contributed to our understanding of alien, naturalised and invasive plant species distributions. Still, the role of species invasions in habitats, specifically in aquatic habitats, remains underexplored at the global scale. Accordingly, a comprehensive global synthesis of the status of plant invasions in aquatic habitats has been missing. Here, we focus on macroecological patterns of naturalised non-invasive and invasive plants in aquatic habitats using the recently built SynHab database. Amongst all the plant records compiled in SynHab, 592 are assigned to aquatic habitats, of which 183 are unique plant taxa (further termed ‘species’) belonging to 49 families. Of the total number of records, 462 refer to taxa with naturalised non-invasive occurrences and 130 to invasive occurrences. The species pool analysed here refers to 78 regions distributed across all botanical continents as defined by the World Geographical Scheme for Recording Plant Distributions. The number of naturalised non-invasive aquatic species is similar across different continents and biomes, but Tropical Asia had more and the Mediterranean zonobiome had fewer invasive species than expected. Tropical Asia, Temperate Asia and Africa have the highest proportions of naturalised species that have become invasive, while across continents, invasive proportions were highest for tropical and subtropical zonobiomes. New Zealand, Italy and California contained disproportionately more naturalised species than expected, given the area covered by aquatic habitat in those regions, whereas South Sudan, Papua New Guinea and Kyrgyzstan had disproportionately fewer species. In pairwise dissimilarity comparisons, all continents had distinct species compositions (from 0.73 to 0.92 of the Jaccard dissimilarity index) and so did zonobiomes (0.69 to 1.00). The high proportion of invasive species in Tropical Asia in comparison with terrestrial invasions in this region, indicates a greater susceptibility of warmer regions to aquatic plant invasions. This may be exacerbated by further naturalisations in the future, as data from temperate regions suggest a larger pool of available species