Abstract
The increasing anthropogenic and technogenic impact on the soil and vegetation cover and water resources of Central Asia has sharply accelerated the degradation and desertification of natural pastures in this region, which was accompanied by a deterioration in the fodder base for animal husbandry, and, as a result, in the quality of life of the population. The theoretical substantiation of methods for economically profitable ecological restoration of lost biodiversity and forage productivity of desertified lands is an important scientific task. To solve it, the authors propose to use approaches based on biogeocenotic principles of the formation of multispecies multilevel pasture biogeocenoses, recreating optimal florocenotic structures by introducing zonal basic dominant species and life forms of forage plants into their composition. Such reconstructed biogeocenoses have the property of self-renewal and self-maintenance of the natural structural and functional organization. They are also of great nature conservation value because they contribute to the suspension of the desertification of arid pasture lands, the cessation of dust storms, and the restoration of optimal environmental parameters.
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This study was supported by the Russian Science Foundation, project no. 19-16-00114.
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Translated by B. Alekseev
RAS Corresponding Member Zebri Shamsutdinovich Shamsutdinov is Chief Researcher at the Federal Williams Research Center of Forage Production & Agroecology. Nariman Zebrie-vich Shamsutdinov, Dr. Sci. (Biol.), is a RAS Professor and Chief Researcher at the All-Russia Kostyakov Research Institute for Hydraulic Engineering and Land Reclamation. Nikolai Sergeevich Orlovskii, Dr. Sci. (Geogr.), is a Professor at the Jacob Blaustein Institutes for Desert Research, Ben-Gurion University. El’mira Zebrievna Shamsutdinova, Cand. Sci. (Agric.), is a Leading Researcher and Head of the Laboratory of Arid Forage Plants at the Federal Williams Research Center of Forage Production & Agroecology.
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Shamsutdinov, Z.S., Shamsutdinov, N.Z., Orlovskii, N.S. et al. Biogeocenotic Principles of Pasture Restoration in the Central Asian Desert. Her. Russ. Acad. Sci. 91, 204–212 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1134/S1019331621020076
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1134/S1019331621020076