KGBase: Ants of Lower Volga: About

Ants (Insecta, Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of the Lower Volga Region (Russia)

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The source data of the database (as well as all materials on this site, source data is provided under the Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) license ) can be obtained as follows:

Database (SQLite file). For a description of the structure of tables and their fields in the database, see below.

Images database (SQLite).

GeoJSON file (exact geometry of the locations). For a description of the structure of this file, see below.

GeoJSON file (geometry of the locations is approximated to the points).

About this database.

About the Lower Volga region.

The Lower Volga Region is a region in the extreme south-east of European Russia, which includes the Republic of Kalmykia, Volgograd and Astrakhan Regions. Most of the territory of the Lower Volga Region is covered by steppes (Volgograd Oblast and the north of Astrakhan Oblast and Kalmykia) and deserts (southern part of the region). The region is crossed by the valleys of two major rivers, the Volga and the Don, and their inflows. These valleys have a lot of wetland and forest habitats. The relief of the Lower Volga Basin is flat, to the west of the Volga and Caspian Depression is rough, often with a large number of ravines, gorges, etc., often with ravine forests. The Caspian Depression covers almost the entire southern half of the Lower Volga Basin, its landscapes are deserts or dry steppes with a lot of salt marshes.

History of studying ants in the Lower Volga region

Researches on fauna of ants of the Lower Volga region have been started in XIX century and in the beginning of XX century have been summarized by Mikhail Dmitrievich Ruzsky in the book "Ants of Russia" (1905, 1905). A total of 48 species of ants in their modern concepts were mentioned by them for the Lower Volga region. Much of these references were based on material collected by him personally. Unfortunately, most of the Ruzsky's collection kept at Kazan University (where Ruzsky worked then) was probably lost afterwards. For this reason, many of his references cannot now be correctly interpreted.

Throughout the XX century, after the publication of Ruzsky's work, data on ants of the Lower Volga region were almost not updated. Only descriptions of some new species were published (Emery, 1925; Arnoldi, 1928, 1970). New fauna researches were started by me in Volgograd and Astrakhan’ regions and by Zh.V. Savranskaya in Kalmykia after 1995. Their result was an article published in 2002 (Grebennikov et al., 2002) in which 77 species of ants were listed for the Lower Volga region. Currently, the concept of many of the species listed in this article has changed significantly and some references need to be corrected. Unfortunately, the material on which the article was based has been left only in part, which sometimes makes it difficult to understand the current status of the references.

After a considerable break, I have been resuming my study of the Lower Volga Region myrmecofauna since 2007. These studies allowed me to clarify the distribution of many species in the region and enrich the list of known species. Some of the results of these studies were published by me earlier (Grebennikov, 2013, 2014; Grebennikov, Anikin, 2016; Grebennikov, Zryanin, 2017; Grebennikov, 2019).

The locations for which references of the ants are known, or specimens collected in them, are shown on the map:

Materials and methods

This catalogue is based mainly on literature references and my own collection of ants in the Lower Volga region (as well as material kindly provided by my colleagues). The collection and study of the material was made by all generally accepted and applicable research methods for this group.

About this catalogue

No doubt, the catalogue represents only the preliminary list of ants of the Lower Volga region with the description of known references and findings, and some critical notes.

Some areas of the region remain poorly studied. First of all, it is the north and west of Volgograd region, where many species are possible to find, which are not yet known in the Lower Volga region. The fauna of some groups (primarily Leptothorax and Myrmica genera) also remains poorly studied. The status and concepts of many taxa are not yet quite clear, as explained in the comments.

In preparing this catalogue, the concept of “cryptic species” separated by methods of “integrative taxonomy” was considered as insufficiently verified and not yet confirmed by field observations proving the biological isolation of such species. For this reason, many species are considered here in the wide “classical” interpretation. In each case, the necessary explanations are provided.

Acknowledgements

A lot of people have been helping me work on this project for many years. I consider it an onerous task to acknowledge their important contribution to this catalogue and to say thank them very much.

At the initial stage, E.V. Komarov (Volgograd), who introduced me to the world of entomology in my youth, was a great help in organizing this work. Some other colleagues from Volgograd (O.G. Brekhov and A.A. Sergeev) kindly provided their small collections of ants for study. Separately, I would like to thank the deceased D.M. Astakhov (also from Volgograd) who provided very interesting material included in this catalogue. From O.I. Broznov (Astrakhan’) I received small but also very interesting material from the Astrakhan’ region, and help in a short but very productive field trip.

The opportunity to consult and discuss work with colleagues, in particular, D.A. Dubovikov (St. Petersburg) and Z.M. Yusupov (Nal’chik), was of great importance to me.

Without a large number of people, my field trips and expeditions in the Lower Volga region would not have been possible. First of all, I would like to thank all employees of Bogdinsko-Baskunchaksky Nature Reserve who helped me during three years of work in this organization. In addition, I was also assisted in my work on the territory of the Astrakhansky Nature Reserve by the Reserve's researchers. I am sincerely grateful to M.V. Mokrousov (Nizhny Novgorod) for organizing the most interesting expeditions, in which I took part in the last few years, and for productive discussions on a wide range of scientific topics.

Literature mentioned above

Arnol'di, K. V. (1928) Studien über die Systematik der Ameisen. III. Rossomyrmex. Neue Gattung der Ameisen und ihre Beziehungen zu den anderen Gattungen der Formicidae. Zoologischer Anzeiger, 75, 299-310.

Arnol'di, K. V. (1970) New species and races of the ant genus Messor (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) [Novye vidy i rasy murav'ev roda Messor (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)]. Zoological Journal [Zoologicheskii Zhurnal], 49, 72-88.

Emery, C. (1889) Intorno ad alcune formiche della fauna paleartica. Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, 27, 439-443.

Emery, C. (1898) Beiträge zur Kenntniss der palaearktischen Ameisen. Öfversigt af Finska Vetenskaps-Societetens Förhandlingar, 20, 124-151.

Emery, C. (1925) Revision des espèces paléarctiques du genre Tapinoma. Revue Suisse de Zoologie, 32, 45-64.

Grebennikov, K. A. & Zryanin, V. A. (2017) Interesting records of the ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) from Volga region and Dagestan [Interesnye nahodki murav'ev (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) iz Povolzh'ya i Dagestana]. Proceedings of the Russian Entomological Society [Trudy Russkogo Entomologicheskago Obshchestva], 88, 38–43.

Grebennikov, K. A. (2015) New records of ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in the Lower Volga region [Novye nahodki murav'ev (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) v Nizhnem Povolzh'e]. SCI-ARTICLE.RU. Available from: http://sci-article.ru/stat.php?i=1421406586 (11.02.2020).

Grebennikov, K. A. (2019) First records of Cardiocondyla sahlbergi Forel, 1913 (Insecta, Hymenoptera, Formicidae) in the Volga Region [Pervye nahodki Cardiocondyla Sahlbergi Forel, 1913 (Insecta, Hymenoptera, Formicidae) v Povolzh'e]. Entomological and parasitological studies in the Volga region [Jentomologicheskie i parazitologicheskie issledovanija v Povolzh'e], 46-48.

Grebennikov, K. A., Dubovikov, D. A. & Savranskaya, Zh. V. (2002) Ecological-faunistic characteristics of ants (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) of the Lower Volga region [Fauna i ekologicheskie osobennosti murav'ev (Hymenoptera, Formicidae) Nizhnego Povolzh'ya]. In: Biodiversity of Insects of the Southeast of the European Part of Russia [Bioraznoobrazie nasekomykh Yugo-Vostoka Evropeiskoi chasti Rossii]. Region. Tsentr po izucheniyu i sokhraneniyu bioraznoobraziya; Volgogradskoe otd. Rus. entomol. obshch., Volgograd, pp. 178–195.

Ruzsky, M. D. (1903) Essay on the myrmecofauna of the Kirghiz steppe [Ocherk mirmekologicheskoy fauny Kirgizskoy stepi]. Proceedings of the Russian Entomological Society [Trudy Russkago Entomologicheskago Obshchestva], 36, 294-316.

Ruzsky, M. D. (1905) The ants of Russia. (Formicariae Imperii Rossici). Systematics, geography and data on the biology of Russian ants. Part I. [Murav'i Rossii (Formicariae Imperii Rossici). Sistematika, geografija i dannye po biologii russkikh murav'ev. Chast' 1]. Trudy Obshchestva Estestvoispytatelei pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom Universitete, 38, 1-800.

Ruzsky, M. D. (1907) The ants of Russia. (Formicariae Imperii Rossici). Systematics, geography and data on the biology of Russian ants. Part II [Murav'i Rossii (Formicariae Imperii Rossici). Sistematika, geografija i dannye po biologii russkikh murav'ev. Chast' 2]. Trudy Obshchestva Estestvoispytatelei pri Imperatorskom Kazanskom Universitete, 40, 1-122.

Description of the data

Source database

The relational database directly used here for displaying data is a SQLite file format.

The database tables and their fields are described below as a table:

Table	Field	Type	Description	Key	Foreing key
collections			Data of collections in which the specimens are stored
	`collection`	TEXT	collection identifier	primary key, unique
	`description`	TEXT	description of the collection (eg "Private collection of John Smith","Collection of the University of Somecity ")
	owner	TEXT	owner of the collection (private person or organization)
	curator	TEXT	curator of the collection
	`contact`	TEXT	contact information for communication with the owner or curator of the collection
location			Location data (formal place of collection, observations or literature references) - general description
	`location`	TEXT	locality identifier	primary key, unique
	`description`	TEXT	description of the location (eg "top of Mount Big Mount", "3 km north of Nowhere town")
	`hierarhy`	TEXT	place of the location in the geographical hierarchy (administrative or physical: from large allotments to small ones, separated by a comma with a space).
	`source`	TEXT	the method or source by which the geographical coordinates of the location are determined (map, GPS or some others), and potential deviation of coordinates from actual (optional)
	`author`	TEXT	the author who set the geographical coordinates of the location
placemark			Geographical coordinates of parts of the location (or their boundaries)
	`location`	TEXT	locality identifier	foreign key	location.location
	`placemark`	TEXT	placemark identifier	primary key, unique
	`type`	TEXT	type of location (point, polyline or polygon: Piont, LineString, Polygon)
	coordinates	TEXT	coordinates of the location (WGS-84: degrees and meters: longitude,latitude,height ... ... - like in Keyhole Markup Language standard).
series			Data of series (all of specimens collected in one location by one collector at one time by one the same method (s))
	`series`	TEXT	serie identifier	primary key, unique
	`location`	TEXT	locality identifier	foreign key	location.location
	`cmode`	TEXT	description of method(s) of collecting the serie
	`habitat`	TEXT	description of habitat where the serie was collected
	`datetime_start`	TEXT	the start time of the collection of the serie (in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss, with possible reduction to known data up to a year)
	`datetime_end`	TEXT	the end time of the collection of the serie (in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss, with possible reduction to known data up to a year)
	collector	TEXT	name of the collector
specimen			Collection specimen data (storage units in the collection)
	`specimen`	TEXT	specimen identifier	primary key, unique
	`series`	TEXT	series identifier	foreign key	series.series
	`taxon`	TEXT	taxon name	the foreign key	taxon.name
	`parts`	INTEGER	The number of parts (individuals) of which the collection specimen consists
	`collection`	TEXT	collection identifier	foreign key	collections.collection
specpart			Data of the composition of specimen
	`specimen`	TEXT	specimen identifier	foreign key	specimen.specimen
	`part`	TEXT	name (designation) of part of the specimen (male, female, etc.)
	`number`	INTEGER	number of parts of the specimen
determ			Specimen determinations data
	`determ`	TEXT	identifier of determination	primary key, unique
	`specimen`	TEXT	specimen identifier	foreign key	specimen.specimen
	`taxon`	TEXT	the name of the taxon (original spelling in the label)
	`datetime`	TEXT	date and time of determination (in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss, with possible reduction to known data up to a year)
	`determinator`	TEXT	author of the determination
sections			Database sections information*
	`section`	TEXT	database section	primary key, unique
	`title`	TEXT	arbitrary title of the section description
	`description`	TEXT	any description of the section
section			Taxa included in sections of the database
	`section`	TEXT	database section	foreign key	sections.section
	`name`	TEXT	taxon name	foreign key	taxon.name
taxon			Taxon data (as a formal unit of taxonomy)
	`prank`	TEXT	rank of a parent taxon
	`parent`	TEXT	the name of the parent taxon
	`ssyn`	TEXT	the senior synonym of a taxon (if the taxon is junior synonym of some other taxon, in this case fields `prank` and `parent` must be empty)
	`rank`	TEXT	rank of taxon
	`status`	TEXT	the status of a taxon (valid, invalid, doubtful, synonym etc.)
	`name`	TEXT	the name of the taxon	primary key, unique
	`abbr`	TEXT	abbreviated authorship of the taxon ("(L.)", "Linnaeus", "(Linnaeus, 1765)")
	`orig`	TEXT	the original name of the taxon (according to the first description)
	`auct`	TEXT	the author of the taxon (full spelling without year)
	`year`	TEXT	year of the description of the taxon
	`ref`	TEXT	bibliographic reference	foreign key	literature.ref
	`page`	TEXT	page for the source with the first description of a taxon
tdata			Data of the taxon (as a biological species)
	`name`	TEXT	taxon name	foreign key	taxon.name
	`general`	TEXT	general description of the taxon with any notes on taxonomy etc.
	`mdescript`	TEXT	morphological description
	`biology`	TEXT	a description of the features of biology
	`ecology`	TEXT	description of ecological features
	`distribution`	TEXT	description of the distribution of a taxon
	`frequency`	TEXT	frequency of occurrence of a taxon
literature			Data of literature sources
	`ref`	TEXT	short bibliographic reference (eg, Smith J., 2001)	primary key, unique
	`text`	TEXT	complete bibliographic reference
	`file`	TEXT	the link to the file with the full text of the work or some webpage etc. (if exists)
reference			Data of literature references to the records of taxa
	`reference`	TEXT	reference identifier	primary key, unique
	`ref`	TEXT	bibliographic reference	foreign key	literature.ref
	`location`	TEXT	location identifier	foreign key	location.location
	`name`	TEXT	taxon name	foreign key	taxon.name
	`citedas`	TEXT	the original name of the taxon in the source
	`text`	TEXT	original source text
	`page`	TEXT	source page with indication
obs			Data of observations of taxa
	`obs`	TEXT	observation identifier	primary key, unique
	`location`	TEXT	location identifier	foreign key	location.location
	`datetime`	TEXT	date and time of observation (in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss)
	observer	TEXT	observer name
	`name`	TEXT	taxon name	foreign key	taxon.name
	`condition`	TEXT	description of the state of the object at the moment of observation
obsdet			Data of the determinations of the observed objects
	`obsdet`	TEXT	determination identifier	primary key, unique
	`obs`	TEXT	observation identifier	foreign key	obs.obs
	`name`	TEXT	taxon name	foreign key	taxon.name
	`deterninator`	TEXT	author of the determination
	`datetime`	TEXT	date and time of determination (in the format YYYY:MM:DD hh:mm:ss)
* the division of the database into "sections" (data sets for different taxonomic groups), implemented earlier, seems doubtful. In the future, most likely, this possibility will be excluded. For each dataset it will be necessary to create a separate database.

Spatial data

In addition to the database directly used here, data can be obtained as a file in GeoJSON Format (https://geojson.org/). Each element of such a file is a set of basic data about record of a species and a spatial description of the location of the record.

For ease of use, geodata of records can be obtained in two different formats:

Original data, including exact lines and polygons describing the locations of the records.
Coordinates of the locations of records approximated to points.

Descriptions of properties of objects (records of species) are given below as a table (more detailed data can be found in the source database, which is described above):

field name	field desctiption	type
ID	unique identifier of the record (cannot be empty)	String
record_type	record type (options: specimen (preserved specimen in collection), reference (in literature), observation) (cannot be empty)	String
taxon_name	scientific name of the taxon (cannot be empty)	String
taxon_rank	rank of the taxon (eg, species, subspecies etc.) (cannot be empty)	String
taxon_status	status of the taxon (cannot be empty)	String
location_ID	unique identifier of the location (cannot be empty)	String
country	name of the country (cannot be empty)	String
region	name of the region (province etc.) (optional)	String
district	name of the district (county etc.) (optional)	String
collector	name of the collector (the field is empty in case of reference or observation)	String
collection	identifier of collections in which the specimens are storedr (the field is empty in case of reference or observation)	String
date	date of the collector (the field is empty in case of reference)	String
observer	name of the observer (the field is empty in case of specimen or reference)	String
source	short bibliographic reference (eg, Smith J., 2001) (the field is empty in case of specimen or observation)	String
source_name	original name in literature (the field is empty in case of specimen or observation)	String
err_degrees	potential error of coordinates* in degrees	Number
err_meters	potential error of coordinates in meters	Number
* Originally, in the database geometry of each location can be either a point, a line or a polygon, or a set of such figures. In the case of approximating the location coordinates to a point, its coordinates are accepted as the center of the square into which the location limits can be entered. A possible coordinate error is accepted, in this case, as half the side of such a square. If the location coordinates in the database are described by a single point, a possible coordinate error depends on the accuracy of their determination.

. Source code on GitHub.