Reforestation at large burnt areas in middle taiga of the Western Siberia
Annotatsiya
Background. In forested regions of Russia, hundreds of thousands of hectares of forest are destroyed by wildfires every year. As a result, the success of natural forest regeneration in large-scale fire-affected areas is a relevant issue. In addition, our task was to examine how various forest types respond to wildfire and the regeneration patterns in the region. Purpose. The study was to examine forest restoration in the middle taiga of the West Siberian Plain. Material and methods. This study was carried out in the Nizhnevartovsk district of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug (KhMAO-Yugra). 20 large-scale fire-affected areas were surveyed six years after the wildfires, covering a total area of 105.29 thousand hectares. The data for this study were collected by field surveys of fire-affected areas in pine and stone pine forests, representing the main variants of pre-fire forest growth conditions (groups of forest types). Resalts. The study showed that among conifers, Pinus sylvestris L. regenerates better. In productive pine forest types (lingonberry, green-moss, long-moss), the number of pine seedlings ranges from 11.8 to 23.4 thousand/ha. In extreme dry (lichen) and wet (sphagnum) forest types, pine regeneration is unsatisfactory. Pinus sibirica Du Tour colonizes the burnt areas primarily through the Nucifraga caryocatactes L. and the Eutamias sibiricus Laxmann. This study provided significant insights into the ecological recovery of different forest types. Stone pine regeneration can only be considered successful in green-moss stone pine forests (2.8 thousand/ha). The regeneration of deciduous trees - Betula pubescens Ehrh. and Populus tremula L. is significantly more numerous than conifers in all fire-affected areas (except for lichen types). Its quantity in productive forest types reaches 40 thousand/ha. Conclusion. In general, forest restoration is proceeding successfully in most of the surveyed fire-affected areas; more than 90% of the surveyed area can be considered forest-covered.