2018 Issue №2

The Kaliningrad and Pskov regions serve as good examples for comparison of the main trends and patterns of the territorial agricultural structure as the most dynamic type of nature management. The territorial structure of agriculture in the regions and the factors of its evolution are considered on the example of two historical periods (1975—80 and 2016—17). In the Pskov region, the continued decline in the area of cultivated land, the transition from focal to small-scale and dispersed types of nature use was noted. In the Kaliningrad region there is a repeated expansion of agricultural lands, the territorial structure corresponds to a large-scale type. The common pattern for both regions is the decrease in the sizes of the areals and their fragmentation.

The sharp reduction of green zones in Kaliningrad, caused by the rapid modern construction and the increase in the motor vehicles, leads to adverse environmental conditions. Reconstruction and conservation of parks is a priority task for creating an ecological framework of urban areas. The M. Ashman’s landscape park is located in densely populated new districts of Selma and Severnaya Gora and is actively used by the townspeople for recreation. However, its environmental conditions do not meet the standards. The park is a 100-year old historical and cultural heritage. Complex field and historicalgeographical studies were carried out to assess its condition. The study of the ecological state of the park involved landscape mapping, which made it possible to reveal the structure of the landscape of the territory at the level of tracts and to evaluate the efficiency of drainage systems reconstruction. Completed work produced the recommendations on correcting the land reclamation works and the park improvement plan.

The authors analyzed the marine sediment core AMK-4474 recovered from the Northwest Atlantic Mid-Ocean Channel levee. Micropaleontological and grain size analyses were applied to study the main features of sedimentation process in this region during the Late Quaternary. It was shown that Late Quaternary sediments of the channel levees were accumulated during the powerful turbidity current with fluctuations signs. About 26 thousand years ago, the pelagic type of sedimentation became predominant in the studied area.

The article describes the history of the study and the composition of the palvesk formation established in the deposits of the Paleogene of the Sambian Peninsula in the Kaliningrad Region. The authors give the most complete micro- and macro-faunistic characteristics, as well as the palynological complex according to previous studies. According to the results of absolute dating of glauconite isolated from the siltstones of the formation, as well as palynological data, it dates back to the Eocene age rather than the Oligocene (Ryupelian) as previously thought. This fact indicates that in the territory of the Kaliningrad Oblast, there may be no deposits of reliably Oligocene age, since it was only the palvesk formation which was thought to relate to an Oligocene formation.

The article provides new data on the development pattern of the Bolshoye Mokhovoye swamp (Grosses Moosbruch) which is the largest swamp in the Kaliningrad Region located in the southern part of the Neman Delta area. The authors consider peat bed structure, botanical composition of peat, peat accumulation rates in different periods of the Holocene and main stages of the swamp development. It has been determined that the swamp development process started in the middle of the Atlantic ( 7000 cal. BP). The alder swamps were the first peat forming ecosystems that were replaced by reed stands of Phragmites and sedge at the end of Atlantic. In the early, the tall-sedge fen communities became dominant in the area. In the second half of Sub-Boreal, sphagnum mosses began to spread, which led to the formation of phytocenoses of the transitional swamp. The raised swamp stage finally formed in the Sub- Atlantic period.

The article is focused on the development of a methodology for quantitative assessment of adaptive changes magnitude in woody vegetation in the vicinity of the Gomel Polissyе major industrial enterprises on the basis the of leaf blades fluctuating asymmetry index. This justifies the possibility of using this value as a criterion for assessing the woody vegetation adaptation at the morphometric level and further production under technogenic environmental impact.