Expedition on board the R/V “Titov” on June 15-24, 2024
Within the State Assignment No. 0279-2021-0010 “Genetics of communities of Baikal organisms: gene pool structure, conservation strategies” (led by Shcherbakov D. Yu.) an expedition on the R/V “Titov” was conducted on June 15-24, 2024. Sampling was carried out in the coastal zone and bays of the southern and central basins of Lake Baikal. Eight employees of the Laboratory of Genosystematics, one employee of the Laboratory of Hydrology and Hydrophysics of Limnological Institute SB RAS, and one employee of N. Laverov Federal Center for Integrated Arctic Research UB RAS took part in the expedition.
The aim of the expedition was to study the species composition of communities, morphometric traits, cytogenetic characteristics, and population structure on the basis of nuclear and mitochondrial genetic markers of amphipods, mollusks, chironomids, caddis flies, water bears, and benthic algae in the littoral zone of Lake Baikal.
Sampling was carried out at 15 coastal stations: near Baikalsk town, Posolskaya Banka, Aya Bay, Zagli Bay, Cape Zunduk, Cape Aral, Cape Bolshoy Solontsovy, Cape Elokhin, areas of the Kabanya and Sosnovka Rivers, neighborhoods of the Bolshoy Chivyrkuy River, Cape Povalishina, neighborhoods of Bolshiye Koty settlement, the area of Chernaya pad, and the settlement of Listvyanka.
Sampling was carried out with a dredge, bottom sampler, hydrobiological scrapers and nets from the bottom to depths of 30-40 meters, and with the remotely operated vehicle “Rovbilder RB-300” - from depths of 6 to 100 meters. In total, more than 100 samples of invertebrates and macrophytes were collected and analyzed.
В The groups of organisms sampled included crustaceans of the order Amphipoda, dipterans of the family Chironomidae, endemic and Palaearctic species of bivalves and gastropods, various species of water bears, and filamentous algae of the genera Ulothriх, Draparnaldia and Spirogyra.
For Amphipoda crustaceans, 500 individuals were collected from 43 coastal samples. DNA was extracted from more than 250 individuals for molecular phylogeny and genomic analysis. The selected samples contained 10 species of the order Amphipodaof the genera Eulimnogammarus, Acanthogammarus, Parapallasea.The pelagic species Macrohectopus branickii was sampled at six stations in different basins of Lake Baikal at depths of 100-600 m to study the population variability of rapidly evolving mitochondrial genetic markers.
Larvae of endemic chironomids were collected at depths of 50-100 m in Bolshiye Koty Bay and Listvenichny Bay in the near-slope area of Lake Baikal for further deciphering of their mitochondrial genomes. A total of 18 samples of bottom sediments (fine and coarse silty sand with an admixture of silt and gravel) were collected.
Samples of bivalves, water bears, caddis flies, and benthic multicellular algae were collected at 15 coastal stations. The samples were fixed for further molecular-phylogenetic and cytogenetic analyses.
