Teasing apart the joint effect of demography and natural selection in the birth of a contact zone

Vast population movements induced by recurrent climatic cycles have shaped the genetic structure of plant species. This is especially true in Scandinavia that was repeatedly glaciated. During glacial periods trees were confined to refugia, south and east of the ice sheet, from which they recolonized Scandinavia as the ice melted away. This multi-pronged recolonization led to large contact zones in most species. We leverage large genomic data from 5000 trees to reconstruct the demographic history of Norway spruce (Picea abies) and test for the presence of natural selection during the recolonization process and the establishment of the contact zone. Sweden is today made up of two large genetic clusters, a southern one originating from the Baltics and a Northern one originating from Northern Russia. The contact zone delineating these two clusters closely matches the limit between two major climatic regions. This suggests that natural selection contributed to the establishment and the maintenance of the contact zone. To test this hypothesis we first used Approximate Bayesian Computation; an Isolation-with migration model with genomewide linked selection fits the data better than a purely neutral one. Secondly, we identified loci characterized by both extreme allele frequency differences between geographic regions and association to the variables defining the climatic zones. These loci, many of which are related to phenology, form clusters present on all linkage groups. Altogether, the current genetic structure reflects the joint effect of climatic cycles, recolonization and selection on the establishment of strong local adaptation and con-tact zones.

Social media and state repression: The case of VKontakte and the anti-garbage protest in Shies, in Far Northern Russia

This article analytically describes the digital technologies-embedded repression practices developed against a local grassroot environmental protest in Far Northern Russia. Unlike urban political opposition that uses United States-based social media platforms (Facebook and Twitter), grassroots movements mainly use VKontakte, the Russia-developed dominant social network in the country. They use it despite the potential privacy and security risks this platform has posed to users since 2014. By means of an ethnographic approach, this article focuses on government responses to online protest activities and counter-practices formulated by activists to circumvent limitations. Inhabitants have been fighting since July 2018 against a waste landfill project designed to ship vast quantities of garbage from Moscow to a remote site called Shies. A protest camp was set up and maintained to physically preserve the site, joined by people from all over Russia. This article shows that, even as it became a target of government surveillance, VKontakte remains a crucial tool for local activism.

Boris Šerginin pohjoinen

Artikkeli tarkastelee ekokriittisestä näkökulmasta neuvostoaikaisen kirjailijan Boris Šerginin pomorien kansanperinteeseen perustuvista kertomuksista koostuvan tuotannon pohjoisen kuviteltua maantiedettä sekä sen suhdetta luontoon muun muassa kristinuskon ja neuvostomodernisaation konteksteissa. Se esittää, että Šerginin tuotanto rakentaa pomorien narratiivista identiteettiä, jolle keskeisiä ovat rikas elämä meren ehdoilla luonnonvarojen puolesta köyhällä alueella, kristinusko, vanha kulttuuriperintö sekä yhä uusien pohjoisten alueiden hallinta uusien teknologioiden avulla. Šerginiä Venäjän pohjoisen sakraalin maantieteen ja venäläisen kirjallisuuden pohjoisen tekstin kautta lukeva tutkimus on hahmottanut Venäjän Pohjolan kollektiivista identiteettiä keskittyen sen mytopoeettisiin merkityksiin. Tämä artikkeli tuo Šerginin materiaalisen ympäristön vahvemmin esiin ja tarkastelee Šerginin pohjoisen tekstin tutkimusta osana pomorien narratiivista identiteettiä. The North of Boris Shergin This article examines from an ecocritical perspective the imagined geography of the North in Boris Shergin’s works, a Russian writer of the Soviet period, whose stories were based on Pomor folklore. It studies the interconnections of nature and people in Shergin’s stories in the contexts of Christianity and Soviet modernisation. The article argues that rich life by and from the sea in an area poor in natural resources, Christianity, rich cultural heritage, and mastering new northern regions with the help of new technologies are central for the narrative identity of the Pomors whom Shergin’s oeuvre concerns. The research on Shergin from the points of view of the sacral geography of northern Russia and the northern text of Russian literature has outlined the collective identity of the Russian North, focusing on its mythopoetic meanings. This article builds more strongly on the material environment in Shergin’s stories and considers the research on Shergin’s northern text as part of the narrative identity of the Pomors.

Ignoring Environmental Change in Bykovskiy, Yakutia? Thawing Permafrost, Indigenous Knowledge and Modernization Ideologies in Northern Russia

<p>The town of Tiksi and the nearby indigenous village of Bykovskiy are located in northern Yakutia, where the Lena River meets the Arctic Ocean. Both owe their existence to Soviet policies and development plans, one tied to the Northern Sea Route, and the other to a fishing enterprise based on the labor of political prisoners. Post-Soviet transformations since the 1990s have severely altered the economic base of these communities, typically resulting in social, cultural and economic shocks and hardships. At the same time, both communities are affected by environmental change, most visibly in Bykovskiy, where coastal erosion caused by permafrost thaw has been destructing the local graveyard and endangers the housing infrastructure.</p><p>Interestingly, when we conducted fieldwork there in 2019, our interlocutors seemed to pay very little attention to these environmental problems in the narratives they shared with us. While it might be tempting to accuse local residents of ignoring permafrost thaw and other environmental changes, the situation, we argue, is more complex. In fact, indigenous residents, especially, those making a living by practicing “traditional” activities, such as fishing and reindeer herding, have been observing extreme weather events, shifts in seasonal patterns, and changes in the behavior of land animals and fish for a long time. Similarly, to other parts of the Arctic, this accumulated traditional ecological knowledge has been helpful for adapting to the dramatically changing environment. At the same time, on the discursive and political level, this knowledge has been devalued or, at best, rated as a secondary source of information in relation to a more “advanced” institutionalized expert knowledge. Moreover, the Soviet modernization ideologies and discourses about human-environmental relations have impacted local knowledge, ethics and perceptions of the changing environment. This presentation calls for attention to historical and regional contexts and explores how hierarchical relations between different knowledge systems and how state modernization ideologies inform the ways in which indigenous communities in northern Russia relate to the effects of climate change today.</p>

The early 2021 Sudden Stratospheric Warming as observed by ADM-Aeolus

<p>Sudden Stratospheric Warmings (SSWs) are dramatic events where the usually-strong wind vortex around the edge of the polar stratosphere temporarily weakens or reverses, causing the polar temperature to rise by tens of Kelvin in just a few days. These events can trigger extreme winter weather outbreaks in Europe and North America, and are thus of significant scientific and practical interest. However, due to the major technical challenges involved in measuring wind from space, the changes in wind structure involved in an SSW have never been directly observed at the global scale, and our understanding of these changes  has instead been developed through the use of point measurements, localised flight tracks and (primarily) computer models and assimilative analyses. Here, we exploit novel measurements from Aeolus, the first satellite capable of observing wind in the upper troposphere and lower stratosphere, to study this process observationally during the major January 2021 SSW. As the event is still ongoing at time of abstract submission, precise details of the changes seen in Aeolus data over the full event cannot be provided; however, data from the first full week of the SSW shows clear observational evidence in Aeolus data of significant and descending-with-time structural changes to the lower stratospheric flow, including reversal of the mean zonal flow, a clear shifting of the vortex centre to a location over northern Russia,  and perhaps early evidence of a developing split of the vortex into two sub-vortices.</p>

New data on brown coal occurrences in the Yamutarida and Dyuntaturku-yamu river basin in the northern part of the Yenisei-khatanga trough

Background. New information was obtained on brown coal occurrences in the northern part of the Yenisei-Khatanga trough (Lake Taimyr area). This region continues to attract the attention of geologists and oil producers due to its established oil and gas potential.Aim. To study the lithological features of rocks and material-petrographic composition of coals from a new promising area of the Yenisei-Khatanga trough in northern Russia.Materials and methods. A set of geological, lithological, and petrographic research methods was used to study a series of samples of coals and host rocks. Measurements were carried out on a QDI-302 Craic Spectrophotometer microscope with a 50× objective lens according to the standard methodology ISO 7404-5 in reflected polarised light using a Spinel standard (Ro = 0.426%) in oil immersion. X-ray fluorescence analysis was performed using a Respect device with an energy dispersive spectrometer without vacuum, having an X-ray tube with a silver anode (registration of elements only from K to U). Anode voltage — 30 kV. Current — 0.3 mA. Exposure time (τ) — 300 s. Y axis — intensity of characteristic lines, rel. unitsResults. The lithological features of the studied samples were elucidated, and the material-petrographic composition of the coals was studied. In the spore-pollen assemblage from the studied deposits, the dominant associations were determined by the predominance of two-bag pollen of Disaccites (Pinaceae) conifers. On this basis, the age of the Begichevskaya Formation rocks was established as belonging to the Albian and Cenomanian stages of the Lower-Middle Cretaceous.Conclusion. The degree of variability of coals was estimated; their grades (technological groups) and the trace element composition of ash were determined. The reflection values of vitrinites were measured in order to clarify the stage of changes in brown coals and obtain the quantitative characteristics of their quality. The reflection values of vitrinites (Ro) are from 0.32 to 0.52%, which corresponds to the stages of brown coal changes, technological groups 1B—3B.

Quantifying the Northward Spread of Ticks (Ixodida) as Climate Warms in Northern Russia

Climate change is affecting human health worldwide. In particular, changes to local and global climate parameters influence vector and water-borne diseases like malaria, dengue fever, and tick-borne encephalitis. The Republic of Sakha in northern Russia is no exception. Long-term trends of increasing annual temperatures and thawing permafrost have corresponded with the northward range expansion of tick-species in the Republic. Indigenous communities living in these remote areas may be severely affected by human and livestock diseases introduced by disease vectors like ticks. To better understand the risk of vector-borne diseases in Sakha, we aimed to describe the increase and spatial spread of tick-bite cases in the Republic. Between 2000 and 2018, the frequency of tick bite cases increased 40-fold. At the start of the period, only isolated cases were reported in southern districts, but by 2018, tick bites had been reported in 21 districts in the Republic. This trend coincides with a noticeable increase in the average annual temperature in the region since the 2000s by an average of 1 °C. Maps illustrate the northward spread of tick-bite cases. A negative binomial regression model was used to correlate the increase in cases with a number of climate parameters. Tick bite case frequency per district was significantly explained by average annual temperature, average temperature in the coldest month of the year, the observation year, as well as Selyaninov’s hydrothermal coefficient. These findings contribute to the growing literature that describe the relationship between tick abundance and spread in Northern Latitudes and changes in temperatures and moisture. Future studies might use these and similar results to map and identify areas at risk of infestation by ticks, as climates continue to change in Sakha.