History of the study of avifauna of the Ukrainian part of the Dnister river basin within forest-steppe zone

Abstract

Introduction. Most of the Dniester basin is located within Ukraine, but the study of flora and fauna of its individual territories is insufficient, particularly, in terms of ornitho­logy of the forest-steppe zone. Materials and discussions. Active study of the bird population of the region was started by Polish researchers in the first half of the 18th century. A significant contri­bution to the study of ornithocomplexes of the then Podolsk province was made by K. F. Kessler, who published a three-volume work on birds of the Kyiv educational district, which also included the above region. Noteworthy are the works by E. Eichwald, G. Belke, V. Taczanowski and A. Brauner. A detailed summary of the history of the fauna of Podillya and its current state, at the beginning of the 20th century, including birds, was prepared by V. P. Khranevych. Data on the then state of the avifauna of the Kherson province, which included part of this region, is provided in the works by I. K. Pachoskii. There are almost no publications on the bird population of the region in the period from the 1930s to the present. At present, the avifauna of the Ukrainian part of the Dniester forest-steppe zone has not been studied fully enough. Available publications and monographs concern either individual species and groups of birds, or the entire territory of Vinnytsia or Odessa regions. Among them are the publications by O. A. Matviichuk and the monograph “Cadastre of terrestrial tetrapods of Vinnytsia region”. However, most of these works relate to the Southern Bug basin. The avifauna of the Dniester basin is presented rather fragmentarily. The monograph by H. I Denysyk “Zoocenoses of anthropogenic landscapes of Podillya” deserves special attention. However, it concerns anthropogenic landscapes of the Podolsk region as a whole, and does not fully cover the features of the spatial distribution of fauna, including birds, in the Dniester basin within the forest-steppe zone of Ukraine. Conclusions. The analysis of the available literature has shown that, despite a nearly 300-year history of research, this region is currently one of the least surveyed in terms of bird population. The history of the study of birds in the above area can be divided into four periods of research with different intensity and nature of publications. Taking into account the data of the analysis, it can be stated that the available data are extremely poor to form an idea of the dynamics and current state of the avifauna of this region. Therefore, it is obvious that there is an urgent need for targeted comprehensive research that will address most of the above issues.

Keywords

• avifauna
• history of study
• dniester river basin
• forest-steppe zone
• ukraine