Organic Constituents and Biota in the Urban Atmospheric Solid Aerosol: Potential Effects on Urban Soils

The main components of solid atmospheric aerosol are soil and rock particles raised from the earth’s surface by wind erosion, and primary biological aerosol particles. In the composition of atmospheric aerosol, many pollutants, both mineral and organic, appear in areas with intensive human activity. Summer dust (solid atmospheric fallouts) that fell out of atmosphere was collected at two sites in Moscow (the territory of the Leo Tolstoy Museum-Estate in Khamovniki and the Botanical Garden of the Biological Faculty of Moscow State University). Morphological and microbiological studies were carried out in order to characterize the composition of the organic part of urban solid atmospheric fallouts and its possible impact on soils and the urban ecosystem as a whole. It has been found that the composition of the organic part of the samples was identical and included: the representatives of aeroplankton and other particles of biological origin, and also fragments of oil films, plastic fibers, carbon particles, etc., which indicated the hydrocarbon and microplastic pollution brought from the atmosphere. The composition of the studied groups of microorganisms in atmospheric fallouts and in urban soils was similar and indicated close ecological links between urban dust aerosol and soils. The biomass of the studied groups of microorganisms of atmospheric solids was dominated by fungi, many of which are potentially pathogenic and allergenic organisms. Apparently, atmospheric solid aerosols are carriers of microbiological pollution associated with animal feces in the city. The presence of such particles in the air indicates insufficient soil activity as a “bacterial filter”.

90 years of the Biology Faculty of the Saratov State University

The Biological Faculty of the Saratov State University turns 90 years old in 2021. The first students were enrolled at the Faculty in the 1931–1932 academic year. However, the faculty’s history began long before its opening, when the Department of Botany and the Department of Zoology with Comparative Anatomy were organized in the new Saratov Imperial Nikolaev University in 1909. The article describes important events in the life of the Faculty and the contribution of scientists who stood at the origins of the birth of biological science at Saratov State University and played an important role in the formation and development of the Biological Faculty. A whole galaxy of famous biologists and eminent personalities worked at the university at different times. These are the academicians N. I. Vavilov, N. A. Maksimov, A. A. Richter, corresponding members A. Ya. Gordyagin, S. D. Lvov, professors D. E. Yanishevsky, A. D. Fursaev, I. V. Krasovskaya, V. S. Elpatevskiy, B. K. Fenyuk, P. A. Vunder, A. A. Chiguryaeva, S. S. Khokhlov, M. P. Gnutenko, V. V. Ignatov and others. They founded scientific schools, laid down faculty traditions and set a high standard for biological education, which the modern faculty team strives to maintain to this day.

Science is the highest pilotage of intuition at the junction of art and logic: dedicated to the memory of Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor Anischenko Tatiana Grigorievna

The article is dedicated to the blessed memory of Tatyana Grigorievna Anishchenko, Doctor of Biological Sciences, professor, who used to hold the position of head of the Department of Human and Animal Physiology of the Biological Faculty of the Saratov State University from 1995 to 2015. This is a look back at the memories of some of her students and a message for new generations about great prospects in obtaining a golden ticket to life and the wonderful world of science. Tatiana Grigorievna’s students are a great example of success, which lies in the knowledge, first of all, of oneself, and through these lessons, a successful search for new opportunities and goals in life. Science is the pilotage guiding light of intuition at the intersection of art and logic, a compromise of flights of fantasy and clear facts. These unique instruments are based on the best traditions of the school of human and animal physiology.

Taxonomic revision of the family Geraniaceae in the flora of Mongolia

The species composition of the Geraniaceae family in the flora of Mongolia is revised as a result of a critical study of collections of the Herbarium of V. L. Komarov Botanical Institute RAS (LE), the D. P. Syreischikov Herbarium of Biological Faculty of Moscow State University (MW), the N. V. Tzitzin of the Main Botanical Garden (MHA), of the M. G. Popov Herbarium of Central Siberian Botanical Garden (NSK), of the I. M. Krasnoborov Herbarium of Central Siberian Botanical Garden (NS), Herbarium of the Tomsk State University (TK), Herbarium of the South Siberian Botanical Garden (ALTB), Herbarium of the Institute of General and Experimental Biology of the Academy of Sciences of Mongolia (UBA), of the Martin-Luther University Herbarium (HAL), and own gatherings. The species Geranium pamiricum Ikonn. is identified for the first time in the flora of Mongolia. The areas of some species are clarified; maps of distribution over the territory of Mongolia are given.

Obituary: Alexander Vladimirovich Rzhavsky (1959–2018)

Alexander (or Sasha as he was known and preferred to be addressed by his friends) Rzhavsky was born in Moscow, then USSR on 25 August 1959, which means he would have turned 60 soon after the 13th International Polychaete Conference held in Long Beach in August 2019. He was one of those “natural born biologists” whose keen interest in biology became obvious when he was still a child and this interest developed into both profession and life-time passion. In 1976 Alexander graduated from one of the high schools in Moscow that had a specialization in biology and a year later he started his undergraduate studies at Biological Faculty of Moscow Lomonosov State University. He started doing research at the Department of Zoology and Comparative Anatomy of Invertebrates as an undergraduate and that was the time when his scientific interests were determined, as both his Honors and Master’s projects were dedicated to polychaetes, the animals Sasha continued to study for the rest of his life. His diploma thesis was entitled “Ecology of Janua (Dexiospira) nipponica and J. (D.) alveolata (Polychaeta, Spirorbidae) near the southern shore of the Primorye and the morphology of their tubes”. Based on the results of these student projects Alexander published his first two research papers.

In memory of Ludmila Ilyash

On January 6, 2020, Lyudmila Vasilyevna Ilyash, an outstanding hydrobiologist, Doctor of Biological Sciences, professor of the Department of General Ecology and Hydrobiology of the Biological Faculty of Lomonosov Moscow State University. Research interests L.V. Ilyash covered a wide range of issues and topics related to the ecology of marine planktonic and ice algae, patterns of formation of the structure and functioning of phytocenoses in marine ecosystems

THE LIFE WAY OF THE COLLABORANT: ON THE MATERIALS OF THE ARCHIVE-INVESTIGATION CASE OF GUSTAV YAKOBOVSKY

The article deals period of Gustav Gustavovich Yakobovsky’s life – an ethnic German, a Soviet citizen who initially built his career in the field of education, but during the years of the Nazi occupation of Ukraine he took the path of collaboration. The main attention is paid to collaboration of Gustav Yakobovsky with the invaders as a translator of the SD in Dnepropetrovsk. During his work in the SD G.G.Yakobovsky was involved in Nazi war crimes, that is why a study of the collaborator’s biography helps to understand the period of occupation in Dnepropetrovsk region in 1941–1943 and the history of the local Resistance movement.In particular, the archival materials of the case compiled as a result of the investigation of Yakobovsky in 1948 provide the following information. Gustav Yakobovsky was born on 19.05.1912 in the village of Karlovka in Katerinoslav province in a family of ethnic Germans – descendants of colonists. After leaving Shevchenko Nikopol Labour School in 1928, he graduated from Nikolaipolsky technical school (1933) and the biological faculty of Dnepropetrovsk State University (1938). After receiving a university diploma, he worked as an assistant in the Department of Biochemistry and at the same time he was the Deputy Dean of the Faculty of Biology. Being a university student he married to a former classmate in the technical school О.A. Herzenok. They raised daughter Adele. The unremarkable life of the Soviet intellectual changed in 1941 with the outbreak of the German-Soviet military conflict. At the beginning of German occupation of Dnepropetrovsk he got a job in a death squadron (Einsatzgruppe) as a translator with SD investigator Erich Bing, where he worked from October 9, 1941 to March 1942. Later, from the beginning of 1942 he worked as a personal translator of SD head in Dnepropetrovsk (Hauptsturmführer Plata, and after a change of leadership from January 1942, Sturmbanführer Mulde). From March to September 1942, he worked in department ІІІ of the SD, and from September (?) 1942 to August 1943 in department IV of the SD in Dnipropetrovsk.During the period of service he translated interrogations of arrested Soviet citizens, worked with agents, processed information for the SD, went to arrests, and took part in destroying local underground organizations. In Juny 1943, participating in the rout of a clandestine group (Sinelnikovskaya operation), he was seriously wounded and afterwards was taken to Germany for treatment, where he remained until the Nazi regime surrendered. During his service in the Third Reich, he was awarded Iron Cross 2nd class for military contributions and the Wound Badge 3rd class. To study the future fate of the collaborator is a promising direction of the scientific research. His work for the Wehrmacht in Germany, attempts to legalize after the war and ways to avoid punishment for collaboration, the circumstances of his arrest in the Soviet zone of Germany, the investigation and the court in the Ukrainian SSR – all these are the subjects of research in the following scientific publications.

Multiparticle Models of Brownian Dynamics for the Description of Photosynthetic Electron Transfer Involving Protein Mobile Carriers

The article presents a review of modeling the interaction of photosynthetic proteins using the multiparticle Brownian dynamics method developed at the Department of Biophysics, Biological Faculty, Lomonosov Moscow State University. The authors used multiparticle Brownian methods coupled to molecular dynamic simulations to reveal the role of electrostatic interactions and conformational changes in the transfer of an electron from the cytochrome complex to the molecule of the mobile carrier plastocyanin in plants, green algae, and cianobacteria. Taking into account the interior of photosynthetic membrane, they developed the model, combining events of protein diffusion along the thylakoid membrane, electrostatic interactions between proteins and the proteins with the membrane charges, formation of a multiprotein complex, electron transfer within a complex, and complex dissociation. They have also developed multiparticle models of competitive interactions between electron acceptors ferredoxin.