Restoration Ecology Group

Last week, we took part in a very short but intense and fruitful meeting with colleagues from the Agricultural University of Iceland. The aim of the meeting was to establish long-term cooperation between the universities and find common topics for this cooperation. We therefore presented the key areas of our research and our ongoing projects. Some of these topics have been or are currently being addressed by our colleagues, and we were able to discuss them briefly, including MOOCs, wetland restoration, heathland restoration using regionally harvested seeds, green roofs, and the development of vegetation in various disturbed habitats. The faculty garden also inspired our colleagues to explore the potential of an area near their university as a demonstration site for ecological restoration.
Thank you to our colleagues for a very pleasant visit, and we look forward to possible cooperation.

#TeamUp2Restore

The Nature Restoration Regulation has been in place since 2024, but how are we doing with the preparation of the National Nature Restoration Plan, which the Czech Republic must submit in the fall? And what should we focus on? Are we overlooking anything? Anthropogenic biotopes, especially those covering large areas, are key to restoration at the landscape level and can complement existing networks of protected areas. What's more, even in areas where minerals have been extracted, natural processes or assisted restoration can create rare biotopes that are disappearing from our landscape. Klára Řehounková focused on this topic in her contribution to the conference "Diversity of Approaches in Landscape Ecology: Natural and Social Sciences, Restoration Ecology and Landscape Planning" organized by the Czech Society for Landscape Ecology, which took place on February 12 in České Budějovice. The subsequent discussion pointed out that we are still at the starting line with landscape-level restoration planning and that we will not reach our goal without restoring anthropogenic habitats. One of the aids on the road to successful restoration could be the DERTO platform, which is being created as part of the TEAM#UP project and offers a summary of educational and teaching materials across Europe.

At the beginning of February, we participated in the conference Two Days with Biology Didactics to gain inspiration and, in particular, present and promote the TEAM#UP project and the DERTO platform. The aim was to raise awareness of the existence of the project and the platform, and promote the possibility of using its teaching resources among secondary school teachers. This was our third time participating in the conference, which is organized annually by the Faculty of Education, Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. This time, we let our two students take the lead. In his 45-minute workshop, Šimon first summarized the possibilities of using virtual tours in teaching and then guided the participants step by step through the creation of their own virtual tour. Later on, in front of a full auditorium of teachers, Janča presented the TEAM#UP project, the DERTO platform, its resources, and their use in teaching. As an example, she used a worksheet on finding the differences in the species richness of invertebrates on intensively and extensively mown urban grasslands. Both presentations were a success, and we would like to thank Šimon and Janča for their efforts.

You can find out more about the DERTO platform at derto.teamup2restore.eu

#TeamUp2Restore

At the beginning of February, we accepted a kind invitation from the Church Primary and Secondary School in Pilsen to give a lecture on restoration ecology to their third- and fourth-year students.

The fourth-year students attended a lecture on the ecological restoration of human-disturbed sites, which helped them review what they had learned the previous year and prepare for an excursion they will take as part of their studies.

For the third-year students, we prepared a program on the restoration of species-rich meadows using regional seed mixtures. After a short presentation about the various options and methods for restoring species-rich meadows, an interactive activity involving magnifying glasses and seed identification was performed. This activity is always very popular. Finally, the students tested their newly acquired knowledge in a short assignment in which they were asked to propose and, above all, justify which method they would use for restoring meadow vegetation in model examples. Here, too, the students did very well and proved that they had absorbed all the information.

Based on the positive feedback, we believe that the students enjoyed both sessions.

It is kind of a tradition to look back at the year that just ended when a new one begins. We also would like to take a moment to remember all the experiences, the new skills we acquired, and the adrenaline that came with spending last year out on the Šumava springs. The year 2025 brought us tons of adventures out there as well as a few minor obstacles. But we proved to ourselves that neither bad weather nor the need to head into the field at five a.m. with a flashlight in hand can stop us from getting to know this habitat better.
It is worth adding that none of our team members drowned in the springs, and no spring was harmed during the research.

In total, we visited 34 sites this year, monitoring vegetation, including mosses. Our colleagues from Brno managed to collect samples of aquatic invertebrates at 20 sites.

On January 7, 2026, the whole project team also met up to evaluate the past season, plan the upcoming one, and agree on how to continue working on the project results.

This project is funded with the support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic and the Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic within the Programme Prostředí pro život.

#RestoreSprings

The traditional conference of the Czech Botanical Society took place during the weekend of the 22^nd and 23^rd of November. This year's theme was research abroad. As you may already know from our webpage, we are active not only in the Czech Republic but also conduct sampling in various other countries.

Klára Řehounková and Anička Müllerová presented our research on vegetation succession on the lava flows of the Icelandic volcano Hekla, carried out in 2022. We were able to describe the successional development of vegetation over the past approximately 800 years and found that vascular plants established within the first 50 years, that is earlier than usually reported. The second talk was given by Karel Prach who summarized succession on a global scale.

Photos author: Vojtěch Zeisek

In June, together with the students of our partner school in Benešov, we collected seed biomass and seeds of herbs from a species-rich donor meadow in Konopiště (watch the video).
In October, we sow the collected biomass and seeds in the school facility in Pomněnice. We will monitor the plot, and we hope that soon we will find many flowering plants there.

#TeamUp2Restore

Neither the poor weather forecast nor the mud (lots of mud) could prevent us from visiting the Czech-Slovak Army quarry in the Most region. We enjoyed the quarry in its autumnal foggy atmosphere. We visited areas that were declared a National Natural Monument in October this year and where measures to support biodiversity are already being implemented. However, the main goal of our trip was to visit the spontaneously developed water pools. Our student Ester is monitoring these pools as part of her Bachelor thesis and is preparing a virtual tour focused on the ecological restoration of aquatic ecosystems in the mining landscape of the Most Basin. If everything goes according to plan, this tour will be ready by the end of spring next year.

We would like to thank Michal Porteš, who, as always, was a great guide.