Bird Fauna and Community of Northern Taiga in Central Siberia

The ecological patterns of landscape differentiation of the bird fauna and community of northern taiga in Central Siberia at altitudes of 100–1000 m a.s.l. have been analyzed. The flat left bank of the Lena River basin and low-mountain areas of the Putorana and Vilyui plateaus was surveyed in 2002–2020. The route census method was used on transects with an unlimited width. The degree of commonality of the taxonomic structure and species composition of nesting avifauna is high (156 species). A number of species (n = 14) have been recorded nesting at a distance of 100–250 km from the known boundaries of their ranges for the first time. The taxonomic structure of the nesting avifauna corresponds to the zonal and landscape features of the North Asian taiga, dominated by species of orders Passeriformes, Charadriiformes, Anseriformes, and Falconiformes (total 83%). The avifauna of the northern taiga of Central Siberia is formed in a system of common zonal and altitudinal-belt patterns and combines species ecologically associated with forest and shrub vegetation and meadow, aquatic, and mountain habitats. The most significant species in the formation of the avifauna are species of the Siberian fauna type (40%) and boreal and boreal–hypoarctic zonal–landscape groups (41%). The average population density of the bird community is 261 ind./km² in northern taiga larch forests and 8.5 ind./1 km of the shoreline in aquatic–semiaquatic habitats. The bird community in larch forests is numerically dominated by the Siberian jay, willow warbler, arctic warbler, yellow-browed warbler, dusky thrush, finch, common redpoll, and field sparrow. Aquatic and semiaquatic habitats are dominated by 17 species, including the wigeon, common teal, common tern, fiddler, sandpiper, Heuglin’s gull, common gull, and Arctic tern.