Kazbeg birch mouse (Sicista kazbegica)

Mohamed bin Zayed Species project number 14258509

Western Caucasian Sicista: taxonomy, modern distribution and densities, development of noninvasive methods for strictly protected sibling species

The Western Caucasus is well known for a region with high biodiversity. Birch mice (gen. Sicista) of this region were devised based on karyology data onto three species: Sicista kazbegica, Sicista kluchorica and Sicista caucasica. This division was never checked by a more precise technique. And even more, making karyology study normally requires a killing of an animal, which is absolutely unacceptable for rare species. In addition very few data was known about the ecology, distribution, habitat preferences etc. of these species. Even there was no photopicture freely available of them.

All of these encouraged us to make a study of Western Caucasian Sicista, which was kindly supported by MBZ.

We carried out two expeditions to Western and Central Caucasus, exactly to: North Ossetia (Tsey, Arkhon, Zaramag), Karachay-Cherkessia (Teberda and Arkhyz) and Adygeya (Lago-Naki). During these expeditions we were able to find all the species and collect very important data on them.

We designed molecular methods for discriminating of these sibling Sicista, the results are going to be uploaded to GenBank so that it will easy to understand what species you found with gentle technique in a future. Also we found good proofs that the speciation event in this group did happen and in the Northern Caucasus we see not only a high chromosomal variability but also a genetic one.

We produced lots of images during our expeditions and we make them available on our Sicista website and some were sent to IUCN Red List.

A precise botanical description of the localities of each species was made.

Finally we have to assume that the largest threat to the species is the intensive development of tourism. Most of the places where these gentle animals live are used for constructing of hotels, skiing facilities, roads etc. The preservation of the traditional land use should be named as one of the main conservation priorities in the Western Caucasus.

For more information on our research please visit our Sicista Website.

 

 http://www.sicista.hu/content/caucasus/caucasus.html