Boreskov

OP‐44penetrated into Eurasia, and many Holarctic groups (carnivores, rhinoceroses, chalicotheres,suids, bovids, and giraffids) had entered Africa. In the second half of the Early Miocene theintegrated European–Siberian Subregion was formed in the Eurasian Zoogeographical Region(Popov et al., 2009). The emergence of the Sub‐Paratethyan Province was determined by theformation of so‐called Sahara–Gobi desert belt, the extremely large ecological corridor ofopen habitats within a vast area from the East Mediterranean Europe through Asia Minor,Near East, and northern Arabia to Afghanistan and China. Apparently, it was just thisprovince which provided the major faunal interchanges between Eurasia and Africa.The influence of landscape changes on the structure and composition of the land biota isnoticeable in the dynamics of the sedimentation, vegetation, climate and transformation ofthe small mammal communities of the Plio‐Pleistocene of the Russian Plain (Agadjanian,2009). The analysis of taphonomy and composition of the small mammals from 49 Plio‐Pleistocene localities made it possible to trace the habitat and dynamics of the smallmammal communities of the Russian Plain and adjacent territories over the past 3.5–3.0million years. The relationship between the major paleogeographic events on the RussianPlain during the Late Cenozoic and dynamics of the transformation of the small mammalcommunities is demonstrated. A new model for the evolution of arvicolids, the mostimportant group of rodents in the Northern Hemisphere, is proposed. The schemes of thecorrelation of small mammal faunas of the Russian Plain, Siberia, Transbaikalia, Central andWestern Europe are proposed (Agadjanian, 2009).Thus, it is shown that the development of mammal communities in different periods ofthe Cenozoic in Northern Eurasia occurred with the same patterns and was associated withlarge‐scale landscape changes. One of the most important factors to be considered is thebiogeographical one, providing the interoperability of local faunas. The crucial factors in thisprocess are geographical conditions and community structure of the recipient region(Agadjanian, 2009). In general, the landscape restructure increases the efficiency of theintroductions. Examples of feedback is a formation by vertebrates of local or regionallandscapes by direct effects on plant associations (eating up by large gregarious ungulates,proboscideans, and social rodents; seed dispersion by mammals and birds), disintegration ofthe soil surface (burrowing by social rodents), changes in hydrological and other landscapecharacteristics of the territory (beaver dams, human activity).[1]. Agadjanian A.K. Small mammals of the Pliocene‐Pleistocene of the Russian Plain / Ed. L.A. Nevesskaya.Moscow: Nauka, 2009. 676 p. (Trans. PIN RAS. V. 289).[2]. Popov S.V., Akhmetiev M.A., Lopatin A.V., Bugrova E.M., Sytchevskaya E.K., Scherba I.G., Andreyeva‐Grigorovich A.S., Zaporozhec N.I., Nikolaeva I.A., Kopp M.L. Paleogeography and biogeography ofParatethys basins. Pt 1. Late Eocene – Early Miocene / Ed. L.A. Nevesskaya. Moscow: Scientific World,2009. 200 p. (Trans. PIN RAS. V. 292).106