Search

Data on the status of two natural populations of the rare, endemic medicinal species Alangium platanifolium known from the Russian Federation is provided in this article. Information about one of them is reported for the first time. Geobotanical descriptions of the phytocenoses are presented. In southern Primorskii krai, A. platanifolium has been noted to grow in the shrub layer of coniferous/broad-leaved forest with Pinus koraiensis and Abies holophylla. It has also been found that the area of the population discovered 20 years ago has expanded tenfold and now amounts to 10 ha. The new locality of A. platanifolium covers an area of 0.25 ha. The total number of A. platanifolium is more than 700 of various-age plants. The data obtained extends the current knowledge of the distribution and life state of A. platanifolium and indicates the fact of the growth of subtropical elements in phytocenoses of the Russian Federation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We have analyzed the distribution of soil properties and the intensity of net nitrification in the profiles of eutrophic peatlands on the Yakhroma River floodplain (Moscow region, Russia) under 4 land-use types: a near-pristine birch forest, postagrogenic reforestation, and regular plowing for more than 50 and 100 years. The type of land use exerts a significant impact on the content of organic carbon, total nitrogen, the C/N ratio, as well as on the content of nitrates and the net nitrification rate only in the upper peat layers (0–20 and 20–40 cm). The effect of the land-use type on the processes of nitrogen cycle in soil is caused by changes in the quantity, quality, and regularity of the input of fresh plant debris. It has been revealed that nitrification is the main process of microbiological transformation of nitrogen compounds in euthrophic peatlands, irrespectively of the type of their use; plowed peatlands being characterized by a lower nitrification rate as compared to peatlands under forests. The intensity of autotrophic nitrification is higher than the heterotrophic one in the forest peatland and is similar to it in agrogenic and postagrogenic peatlands. The first stage of autotrophic nitrification is mainly performed by ammonium-oxidizing archaea, while the number of copies of the amoA gene of ammonium-oxidizing bacteria is by 1–2 orders of magnitude lower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The changes in the total soil carbon storage and the pools of labile and potentially mineralizable organic matter in Entic Folic Podzols of the Khibiny Mountains (Murmansk region, NW Russia) caused by wildfires of high and moderate intensity and during the post-fire succession are discussed. Although a moderate-intensity wildfire has no statistically significant impact on the total soil carbon pool, it triggers the active erosion processes leading to the carbon losses comparable to the direct pyrogenic carbon losses in a high-intensity fire. In the postfire soil restoration, the type of organic carbon accumulation changes: the surface carbon accumulation in the form of peat is characteristic of the control site, while up to half of soil carbon is accumulated in the mineral horizons at late stages of the postpyrogenic succession. A high-intensity fire leads to almost complete destruction of labile, microbial, and potentially mineralizable carbon pools in both the organic (pyrogenic) and mineral horizons. A moderate-intensity fire does not cause any statistically significant changes in these pools as compared to the control. The restoration dynamics of the labile and potentially mineralizable pools of organic matter in the pyrogenic horizons of soil differ: the trend of a steady increase in the pools of labile and microbial carbon is observed for three years after the fire and later, while the pool of potentially mineralizable carbon reaches its maximum three years after the fire and then becomes stabilized at this level. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The review is devoted to mostly international data on patient safety during surgical procedures. The author emphasizes surgical safety checklist for surgical interventions as a tool developed by the WHO team. The principal objective of this document is protection of patients from harm following unintended misses and casual circumstances. The author tried to explain the basic principles and ideas underlying the checklist procedure. An importance of understanding the process by administration and surgical team is emphasized because its absence deprives this non-complicated and helpful procedure of necessary sense. The problems of patient safety in hospitals of the Russian Federation are also discussed.