Brown bear attacks on humans: a worldwide perspective.

The increasing trend of large carnivore attacks on humans not only raises human safety concerns but may also undermine large carnivore conservation efforts. Although rare, attacks by brown bears Ursus arctos are also on the rise and, although several studies have addressed this issue at local scales, information is lacking on a worldwide scale. Here, we investigated brown bear attacks (n = 664) on humans between 2000 and 2015 across most of the range inhabited by the species: North America (n = 183), Europe (n = 291), and East (n = 190).

Distinct features of intraspecific and intrapopulation variability of the skull size in the red fox.

The range of chronographic variability of the average size of the skull in the red fox (data collected by the authors) from a compact area in the Middle Urals has been assessed for a 30-year period, and the results obtained have been compared with the published data on the geographical variability within the vast species range. The range of changes of the average dimensions of the skull over time spanned almost the entire range of geographical variability. Therefore, the problem of search for factors that determine the morphological diversity arises.

[The role of the Urals in the genetic diversity of the European moose subspecies (Alces alces alces)].

The genetic diversity of the Uralian moose population and the role of the Ural region in the phylogeographic structure of the European moose were evaluated based on sequence polymorphisms of the mtDNA control region. The nucleotide diversity of the Ural moose was low, whereas haplotype diversity was rather high. It was found that the haplotype pool of the Ural moose reflects both the unique features of their mitochondrial lineages and their connection with Alces alces alces populations of Europe and West Siberia.

[Mathematical model study of the dynamics of an exploited population of the common fox (Vulpes vulpes L.)].

The observed dependence of intensity of hunting intensity and the share of reproducing females on fox population density was shown to cause the existence of several stable equilibrium values of fox numbers and incompatibility of requirements for both maximal prey and prey stability. Organization of forbid forests is an acceptable way to regulate hunting in this situation.