Around Lake Baikal 9 - 19 June, 2017 RV “Akademik V.A. Koptyug” and RV “I.D. Papanin”

The expedition was carried out within the framework of the state tasks “Large-scale changes in ecology and biodiversity of communities from the coastal zone of Lake Baikal…” (headed by O. Timoshkin), “Microbial and viral communities in biofilms of freshwater ecosystems…” (headed by O. Belykh) and “Assessment and forecast of ecological state of Lake Baikal …” (headed by T. Khodger).

The expedition was aimed at interdisciplinary research of the current state in the coastal zone of the Northern Baikal Basin in terms of long-term dynamics and change in complexes of dominant species of aquatic organisms at four stations, as well as the factors determining these trends under large-scale negative ecological processes in the lake.

Tasks of the expedition included sampling of material for studying:

• the distribution characteristics of phytoplankton, macrophytes and invertebrates along the transects located in conditionally clean (Cape Bolshoi Solontsovy) and fire-suffered (the Ushkany islands and Cape Elokhin) areas of the coastal zone.
• elemental composition as well as microbiological and hydrochemical indicators in soil samples, interstitial, surface and near-bottom water, and the lake ground located along the transects.
• hydrochemical and microbiological indicators near the lower part of the Tyya River (wastewater discharge) and adjacent areas of the Baikal coastal zone.
• ecology and distribution of benthic blue-green algae (up to 1.5 – 2 m depths) in the areas with mass development of benthic cyanoprokaryotes in the shallow waters of the lake, which was previously unknown for Lake Baikal.
• quantitative and qualitative indicators of the macrozoobenthos in the shallow waters at the South Baikal stations of long-term observation (Listvyanka settlement and Bolshie Koty Bay).