Global assessment of aquatic Isoëtes species ecology

1. Isoetes are iconic but understudied wetland plants, despite having suffered severe losses globally mainly because of alterations in their habitats. We therefore provide the first global ecological assessment of aquatic Isoetes to identify their environmental requirements and to evaluate if taxonomically related species differ in their ecology. 2. The assessment resulted in an extensive new database on aquatic Isoetes, ecological niche analyses, and descriptive species accounts. We compiled a global database that includes all known environmental data collected from 1935 to 2023 regarding aquatic Isoetes. We then evaluated the environmental drivers of 16 species using 2,179 global records. Additionally, we used hypervolume analysis to quantify the ecological niches of the two species with the greatest number of records, finding significant differences and evidence that Isoetes echinospora occupies a wider ecological niche than Isoetes lacustris. 3. Fifty-nine species (30% of the c. 200 Isoetes species known today) were categorised as aquatic and were mainly reported in the Americas and northern Europe. About 38% of the aquatic species are threatened with extinction or are endemic to a small region, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List in 2023. Many species were determined to be sensitive to certain water physical and chemical factors, generally preferring oligotrophic conditions such as low total phosphorus, moderate total nitrogen, moderate to low pH, and low conductivity. 4. This analysis includes ecological data in the assessment of rare/threatened aquatic plants globally. This new database and the ecological analyses completed defined the ecological requirements of several species and identified knowledge gaps, which can aid management actions and future research. 5. This paper highlights ecological significance and environmental sensitivities of aquatic Isoetes. The current level of knowledge is inadequate for a large proportion of known taxa. We affirm the extreme need to support global, collaborative initiatives on which to build future conservation strategies

The use of automatic weather stations to measure the soil temperature in the Mordovia State Nature Reserve (Russia) in 2016

The article presents the soil temperature data obtained using two automatic weather stations located in the Mordovia State Nature Reserve (Russia). Measurements were carried out at the soil surface and at depths of 20 cm, 40 cm and 60 cm. The meteorological stations are located 15 km apart, in general, in similar landscapes. This caused similar results of meteorological measurements. Differences in the average of the daily temperature at corresponding depths are less than 2°C. The average annual temperature differs less than 0.5°C, i.е. within a sensor's error. The annual temperature trend is typical for Central Russia. And it is characterised by well warming in summer and stagnation in winter. The diurnal amplitudes are small. This can be explained by the location of both weather stations under the forest canopy and a well-developed ground vegetation cover

Estimation of taxa included in the first volume of the Red Data Book of the Republic of Mordovia (Russia) using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria

The paper presents an estimation of taxa included in the first volume of the Red Data Book of the Republic of Mordovia using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria. Each taxon is provided by a category and all criteria appropriate for it within the region. The paper contains the estimation results of 177 taxa of vascular plants, mosses and algae from the first volume Red Data Book of the Republic of Mordovia (second edition). Of these, 137 are Threatened: 73 taxa are Critically Endangered (category CR), 41 taxa Endangered (category EN), 23 are Vulnerable (category VU), 31 taxa are Near Threatened (category NT). Nine taxa are in the category Data Deficient (DD), due to a lack of sufficient factual material needed for the evaluation. Another 59 taxa of the Red Data Book of the Republic of Mordovia (35 macromycetes and 24 lichens) were not evaluated in the present study, also due to the lack of sufficient data needed for an evaluation. Therefore, these taxa are temporarily in the category Not Evaluated (NE). But they could be assigned to one of the threatened categories when evaluated in the future, according to the Guidelines for Application of IUCN Red List Criteria. This paper is considered as a base for establishing the Red List of plant taxa of the Republic of Mordovia in the future