The Ministry of Natural Resources and the Timber Industry Complex of the Arkhangelsk Region appealed to biologists of PetrSU with a request to participate in the survey and monitoring of rare species of flora and fauna in the Arkhangelsk region.

The Institute of Biology, Ecology and Agricultural Technologies decided to form a group to explore the species diversity and the propagation of rare lichen species in the Arkhangelsk region. The group included staff members of the Department of Botany and Plant Physiology of IBEaAT (Viktoria Tarasova, Anzhella Sonina, Vera Androsova), who had previously participated in field investigations in the Arkhangelsk region (in the northern part of the Vodlozersky National Park). They have already gathered considerable material that is partially published.

The coordinator of the group is Viktoria Tarasova, Professor of the Department, Doctor of Biological Sciences; members of the group: Anzhella Sonina, Head of Department, Doctor of Biological Sciences, and Vera Androsova, Associate Professor of the Department.

In the course of the planned activities, new areas of the Arkhangelsk region will be surveyed; all the information received is planned to be used in creating the new edition of the Arkhangelsk Region Red Book and forming the first for the region list of lichen species.

Angella Sonina, Professor, Head of the Department of Botany and Plant Physiology, The Institute of Biology, Ecology and Agricultural Technologies, told:

"We are currently arranging coordination and discussing the areas of the research and a time frame of the comprehensive expedition, in which various biologists will take part. Students of Petrozavodsk State University and Northern (Arctic) Federal University (NArFU) will also be involved in the study. For us, this work is interesting because the species composition of lichen of the Arkhangelsk region has not yet been investigated. The list of lichens, for example, in Karelia and the Murmansk region includes more than 1000 species, while neighboring Arkhangelsk region has no published list. The Arkhangelsk region is rich in both forestry and mineral resources, that is, the region is high-demand, so human beings actively change the face of the environment. It is essential to know and understand the region’s biological reserve in order to preserve the most fragile and vulnerable ecosystems and selected species of organisms. "