ASU scientists study faunogenesis of Altai Mountains
The project by Altai State University entitled “Comprehensive Research of Biodiversity, Faunogenesis and Zoogeography of Holarctic Highlands (through the Example of Altai Mountains)” is the only Russian project in classical biology and zoology to supported and monitored by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation.
“Our prime objective is studying faunogenesis of Altai Mountains in four countries: Russia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and China. We have already prepared a lot of materials on the topic, including tens of prestigious publications in respected international journals, agreements with specially protected national reserves in the mentioned countries and so on,” said Roman Yakovlev. “I am sure that we will be able to fulfill our obligations towards government, because we have already started a serious work and our research team consists of scientists, who have proved to be competent in this sphere of knowledge.”
According to the scientist, there are a lot of animals inhabiting mountains of Altai and Siberia, who have close relatives in the Arctic. The areas of these species are thousands of kilometers apart. The research will shed light on peculiarities of fauna formation on the territory of South Siberian mountains, where environmental conditions are close to the Arctic.
“Government support is a serious resource for work in our field of research,” emphasized Roman V. Yakovlev. “Our research team consists of young and eminent scholars, students and professors. We have strong international relations with more than 250 authors from foreign countries, such as the United States of America, Japan, Iran, Argentina and so on. The fact that our project will be backed by the government from now on means a lot in terms of training highly-qualified specialists and encouraging scientists’ publication activity. We are happy that we’ve received the support. It is confirms that Russia needs fauna research, which will be conducted on the global level and lead to the interesting fundamental results. I would like to point out that every team member deserves credit for our success. We do not need to prove the high level of our scholars; it is enough to see the list of works they have published and everything becomes clear.”
It is to be noted, that Zoological Institute under the Russian Academy of Sciences (Saint-Petersburg) has supported the project of ASU scientists and is going to become a partner on the project realization.