Anthropogenic Neighborhood Impact on Bacterial and Fungal Communities in Polar Bear Feces.

Climate changes cause a dramatical increase in the ice-free season in the Arctic, forcing polar bears ashore, closer to human settlements associated with new and non-natural food objects. Such a diet may crucially transform the intestinal microbiome and metabolism of polar bears. The aim of this study was to characterize changes in the gut bacterial and fungal communities resulting from the transition to anthropogenic food objects by the means of 16S and ITS metabarcoding.

[Reference intervals of thyroidstimulating hormone in pregnant women living in the central regions of the Russian Federation].

Background: Pregnancy is a condition with important structural and physiological changes in the thyroid gland. In this regard, experts of thyroid associations have recommended developing specific reference intervals taking into account the natural and socio-geographical characteristics of the region under study.

Aim: To conduct an epidemiological analysis and evaluate TSH reference intervals in pregnant women living in the central regions of the Russian Federation with mild iodine deficiency.

Isotopic Composition of Blood of Polar Bears (Ursus maritimus) of the Kara-Barents Sea Population.

The data on the content of carbon and nitrogen isotopes in the blood samples of polar bears obtained in the present study confirm that polar bears in the Taimyr region (and the Kara-Barents sea population in general) are partly dependent on the resources of terrestrial origin. However the "terrestrial carbon" evidently reaches bears' tissues indirectly, via marine food webs utilizing organic carbon brought into the polar basin by Siberian rivers.

Movement of a female polar bear (Ursus maritimus) in the Kara Sea during the summer sea-ice break-up.

The polar bear movement trajectory in relation to onset date of the sea-ice break-up was studied in the coastal zone of the Taimyr Peninsula, eastern part of the Kara Sea, using as an example a female polar bear tagged by a radio collar with an Argos satellite transmitter. Analysis of the long-term pattern of ice melting and tracking, by means of satellite telemetry, of the female polar bear who followed the ice-edge outgoing in the north-eastern direction (in summer 2012) suggests that direction of the polar bear movement depends precisely on the direction of the sea-ice cover break-up.