Development of problems of population, evolutionary, ecological morphology and issues of protection and rational use of natural resources of mammals in the works of Valentina N. Rudi (1938-2001)
The article presents a general overview of thirty years of research by the famous Russian zoologist and morphologist V. N. Rudi on the morphology and ecology of mammals inhabiting the ecosystems of the Southern Urals. Rudi’s comparative morphological studies were in line with population morphology, an intensively developing direction of evolutionary morphology. On the basis of extensive comparative material obtained during field studies in Russia (Orenburg and Chelyabinsk regions, Bashkiria) and Kazakhstan (Aktobe, Kustanai and Ural regions), she carried out a comparative population analysis of a number of structures (skull, skeleton of limbs) of the marmot, small and large ground squirrels and revealed patterns of morphological variability of these species in the conditions of the Southern Urals. She traced the evolution of the mammalian fauna of the Southern Urals over a long period and showed the main patterns of its formation. Population-morphological studies of V. N. Rudi contributed not only to the study of the processes of microevolutionary transformations among various species of mammals, but also provided a morphological basis for solving environmental problems and problems of protection and rational use of natural resources of mammals in the South Ural region.