MAIN GOALS AND TASKS

Professor N.Yu. Zograph

The laboratory built in 1905 and presently declared as the scientific & cultural memoria

Hydrobiological station "Glubokoe ozero" is situated in Ruza District of Moscow Region, 55 km to the west from Moscow, on the shore of the lake with the same name. This oldest in Russia and one of the oldest in the world hydrobiological station was founded in 1891 by the initiative of chairman of the ichthyologic department of Russian Imperial Society on Animal and Plant Acclimatization, Professor of the Moscow State University N. Yu. Zograph. The first head of the station was the future Academician S.A. Zernov. In the following years the station was headed by well-known biologists N.V. Voronkov, B.S. Greze, A.V. Rumyantsev, G.S. Kazarkin, and A.P. Scherbakov.

From 1930 to 1939 the biostation was in the system of scientific institutions of Hydrometeorological Service and was joined with near-Moscow Kosino limnological station. In 1939 the Biological station was assigned to the Academy of Sciences of the USSR and was included into the A.N. Severtsov Institute of Evolutionary Morphology.

Lake Glubokoe (glubokoe=deep) is characterized by vertical stratification of water volume and diversity of the shoreline habitats, not big size (about 60 hectares), significant deep (up to 33 m), distant location from populated sites, and purity of its waters. This lake is very valuable for model scientific research due to its small size and distinctive features, which are inherent to larger waterbodies (vertical stratification etc.). In spite of increasing anthropogenic influence, the lake Glubokoe keeps on to be one of a few waterbodies of the center of the Russian Plain, almost not experiencing a negative human influence and can be viewed as an example of natural reference object.

In 1945 the lake and surroundings were included into the Gluboko-Istrinskiy Reserve, which unfortunately, was soon (in 1951) liquidated. In 1966, a regional natural refuge was formed here, the square of which was broadened in 1981 up to 2026 hectares. At present, a question concerning the restitution of the reserve status for this territory has been raised.

Since 1972 till present the Group for ecology of freshwater communities has been permanently working here, which is headed by scientific adviser of the station, Prof., Dr.Biol.Sci. N.N. Smirnov. Another subdivision, the fellows of which are perennially and permanently working at the biostation, is the Laboratory of Comparative Neurobiology of Vertebrates, research field of which is connected first of all with the study of chemosensory ecology and ethology of amphibians. Substantial attention is also paid to observations of long-term dynamics of amphibian populations, the study of the influence of invasive predatory fish Perccottus glenii on them.