Salda sahlbergi Reuter 1875

Salda sahlbergi Reuter, 1875

(Figs. 11–14; 21–23; 33; 34; 38; 41, 2)

Reuter, 1875: 330; 1895: 13 (Acanthia); Oshanin, 1908: 589 (Acanthia); Drake, Hoberlandt, 1950: 6 (Saldula); Kiritshenko, 1951: 95 (Saldula); Cobben, 1960: 220; Hoberlandt, 1977: 144; Vinokurov, 1979: 62; 1988: 749; 2005a: 887; Matis, 1986: 128; Schuh et al., 1987: 288; Lindskog, 1991: 7; 1995: 136; Vinokurov, Kanyukova, 1995a: 8; 1995b: 36; Vinokurov et al., 1998: 173; Vinokurov et al., 2001: 209; 2003: 53; Kerzhner, Zinovyeva, 2004: 224.

A Holarctic boreal species, was described from Leningrad Province and Karelia.

Distribution (Fig. 41, 2). The northwest and north (the Northern Urals) of the European part of Russia; Gorny Altai; Eastern Siberia: the Taimyr Peninsula (Kerzhner and Zinovyeva, 2004), Northeastern, Central, and Southern Yakutia (Vinokurov et al., 2001, 2003; Khruleva and Vinokurov, 2007), and Transbaikalia; the Far East: Magadan Prov. (Matis, 1986) and Sakhalin Island (Hoberlandt, 1977).—The north of Scandinavia (Hoberlandt, 1977; Lindskog, 1991), Mongolia, Northeastern China, the Korean Peninsula, Japan (Hokkaido Island: Hayashi and Miyamoto, 2005), Canada (Newfoundland; introduced?).

Material. Russia. Gorny Altai: Kosh-Agach, 23.VIII.1964 (Kerzhner). Yakutia: upper Moma River, near Sasyr Vill., VII.1993 (Alekseeva); right bank of Lena River, “Bulus” icefield, 17 km downstream of the Buotama River mouth, 5–7.VII.1996 (Vinokurov); Stanovoi Mt. Range, Nagornyi Vill., 15–17.VII.1995 (Vinokurov and Yasunaga); Chersky Mt. Range, Uolchan River, the left tributary of Indigirka River, Oktyabrskii mine, VII.2003 (Potapova). Transbaikal Territory: Sretensk, Shilka River bank, 2.VII.1928 (Kapustin); Ara-Ilya, 2.VII.1949 (Zhenzhurist). Amurskaya Prov.: Klimoutsy, 40 km W of Svobodnyi, 17.VI.1959 (Kerzhner).

A total of about 550 specimens were examined.

Biology. In Finland and Karelia, the species occurs in swampy soils, small bogs, and near lakes and ponds; in Newfoundland, in peatbogs (Lindskog, 1991: p. 8). In Sweden, P. Lindskog also indicates peatbog among the biotopes. In Central Yakutia, S. sahlbergi occurred together with Chiloxanthus stellatus suturalis Jak. and S. micans on a boggy moss clearing along the edge of a thawing icefield situated in the bed of a stream running into the Lena River. In Northeastern Yakutia, the species rarely occurs, but its abundance can sharply grow in damaged technogeneous landscapes (Vinokurov, 2005a). On the drying up clay bottom of a sewage tank of an industrial gold-mining device, where a succession of the secondary vegetation was at the stage of an initially-moss group, S. sahlbergi was abundant, its representatives constituting 82% of the four Saldidae species inhabiting this area (the dynamic density was 895 individuals / 100 trap-days. In the area of the upper Kolyma River, the species occurs on the silted areas of oxbow bottomland (subterraced) boggy meadows (Matis, 1986).