This year’s eighth issue of the journal Transactions of the Karelian Research Centre RAS, Biogeography Series, was released in late August. The contributions were submitted by Russian scientists from Petrozavodsk, St. Petersburg, Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Sevastopol, Syktyvkar, Cherepovets, Kirov, Apatity, and Arkhangelsk. In total, the issue contains 13 original articles and short communications.

The results of the identification and survey of aapa mires in the north of the Koryak Okrug are shared by co-authors from the St. Petersburg State Forest Technical University, the Komarov Botanical Institute RAS (St. Petersburg), and the Kamchatka Branch of the Pacific Geographical Institute of the Far Eastern Branch RAS (Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky). The article notes the high floristic and coenotic diversity of the surveyed mires, whose plant communities comprise 70 species, including 43 vascular plants, 17 bryophytes, and 10 lichens. The scientists argue that aapa mires are a very rare type for the northern Koryak Okrug, and they are of great geobotanical interest and conservation value.

The paper by scientists from the Kovalevsky Institute of Biology of the Southern Seas RAS (Sevastopol) summarizes the results of an inventory of the species composition of benthic diatoms in Laspinskaya Bay, Crimean coast of the Black Sea, and presents a checklist indicating the occurrence, ecological, and phytogeographic characteristics of the discovered taxa.

During two field seasons, 2024–2025, scientists from the Petrozavodsk State University studied the lichen species diversity at 19 sample plots in the Paanajärvi National Park across three altitudinal belts: forest, forest-tundra, and tundra. The paper provides a list of 87 lichen and closely related fungal species new to the territory of the park. The authors state that, taking into account the surveys reported in the article, there are currently 548 species of lichens and closely related fungi known for the Paanajärvi NP.

Nadezhda Goncharova, Researcher at the Northern Forest Biology Department of the Institute of Biology of the Komi Scientific Centre, RAS Ural Branch, summarized the materials she had collected between 2003 and 2024, data from SYKO herbarium, and the available literature on the composition of mosses and liverworts in natural mires in the flatland part of the Komi Republic. The inventory surveys of the bryoflora yielded 204 taxa, including 134 species of mosses and 66 species of liverworts. Among them, 16 species are rare for the region and in need of protection.

The article by Vera Timofeeva, Researcher at the Forest Research Institute KarRC RAS, reports the results of the surveys carried out in 2022–2025 on the distribution of 36 alien vascular plant species in the Darwin Nature Reserve (Vologda and Yaroslavl Regions). To facilitate further monitoring of the population status and distribution of the detected alien species, the author provides a detailed description of their records (geographic coordinates, habitat, date of the first encounter) and their occurrence in the region as a whole.

Scientists from the City of Apatity (Kola Science Centre RAS) assessed the performance of the network of protected areas (PAs) in the Khibiny and Lovozero Mountains in the Murmansk Region based on an analysis of the adequacy of special protection regimes for current anthropogenic threats. As of March 2026, the network encompasses 18 PAs totaling 160,186 hectares in area. The study revealed, however, that threats from economic activity persist in 76% of the areas; in fact, only 24% of the area of the PA network ensure the fulfillment of conservation tasks.

The history of establishment and current state of the Kakkorovsky Botanical Sanctuary of curly birch is the subject of the paper by scientists of the KarRC RAS – Doctor of Biological Sciences Lidia Vetchinnikova, Leading Engineer Marina Shchurova, and RAS Corresponding Fellow, Doctor of Biological Sciences Alexander Titov. The history of the sanctuary is conventionally subdivided into four phases to map its dynamics over the past almost 100 years. It is noted that illegal logging in the 1990s resulted in a sharp decline in the number of curly birch trees in the sanctuary: of the originally 1,500 trees, 297 remained by 1998, and only about 30 by 2003. The authors stress that the consequences of this have still not been overcome. During the restoration of the sanctuary in 2005, high-quality planting stock was used, but only about 250 trees of the 3,500 planted ones have survived after 20 years because of a lack of timely and regular tending. Nevertheless, a valuable part of the total gene pool of curly birch is still preserved there, and its conservation is an important task of national significance.

The eighth issue of the journal’s Biogeography Series also contains short communications by scientists from Petrozavodsk, Apatity, and Arkhangelsk, reporting new information on aphyllophoroid fungi of the Vepssky Les Reserve of the namesake nature park in the Leningrad Region, additions to the flora of the Utrish Nature Reserve (Northwest Caucasus), the Great Cormorant on Lake Onego, and some features of the insular moose subpopulation on the Solovetsky Archipelago.

The next issue of the Biogeography Series of the Transactions of the Karelian Research Centre RAS will be published early in 2027.