110 Illich's Ave., 83059, Donetsk, Ukraine

Phone: (0622) 94 1280; fax: (0622) 94 6157;
e-mail: herb@herb.dn.ua

Main study areas of Donetsk Botanical Garden are:

– research in the field of industrial botany;

– introduction and acclimatization of plants, aimed at replenishment of plant resources, their use in the national economy and for sanitation of the industrial environment;

– elaboration of scientific principles, fundamentals of biodiversity conservation in the industrial regions of the south-eastern Ukraine.

In the forty years since Donetsk Botanical Garden was founded, it formed a science school in industrial botany, introduction and conservation of plants in the industrial regions. Prominent scientists such as NAS corresponding members, professors E. M. Kondratyuk and V. P. Tarabrin, professor M. L. Reva were its founders. Over the years, ten researchers prepared and defended their doctoral theses and over fifty candidate theses were defended. The research staff works on diverse issues of both theoretical and practical importance. Significant results were obtained in the following areas:

– methodology and technology for plant amelioration in the industrial environment, primarily, for plant reclamation of coal mine dumps;

– creation, conservation and sustainable use of plant genetic pool of the highest international level for plant introduction in arid steppes and industrial polluted regions;

– research into physiological-and-biochemical, populational-and-genetic mechanisms of plants tolerance to human impacts;

– development of scientific principles of plant diversity conservation, study of south-eastern Ukraine’s natural flora and the processes of its transformation under human impacts;

– conservation of the steppe rarity phyto-genetic pool through the development of simulative models for various kinds of steppes that are the national asset of Ukraine.

Research findings are presented in applied developments whose list is regularly published. The following developments are most likely to find wide application:

– a technology for phyto-reclamation of industrially degraded lands;

– a technology for amelioration of forage lands, based on the principle of maximum possible filling of ecologic niches by combining natural and cultivated plants;

– a technology for enforced restoration of steppe vegetation;

– phytosozological estimation and monitoring to substantiate establishing the network of reserved areas;

– populational-and-genetic method of selection, intended for forming conifer plantations;

– plant indication and monitoring of industrial air and biologic pollution;

– a technology for accelerated plant propagation.