We successfully finished the first season of our interesting project working in mined as well as preserved peatbogs. Our aim is to find out which species of fungi, mosses and higher plants grow there and which species of butterflies occur there and, moreover, why some species do still not occur on the mined peatbogs. We also performed experimental sowing of berries of bog cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos) in selected peatbogs to find out if it does not grow there because it still has not spread there or because there are unsuitable conditions there. Hopefully, we will be able to answer this and many other questions in the next years.
This year's international conference on Restoration Ecology was held in South Africa in Cape Town. Our working group was represented by Anička Müllerová and Petra Janečková who presented their posters, Klára Řehounková who had a talk about the results of analyses fo our Database of Successional Series, and Karel Prach who chaired a special section. The conference was very successful and we had great experiences even outside the conference venue...judge for yourself!
We ended up this vegetation season in style on the beach and now we are ready for processing the data. We are greatful for help of our foreign students Chiara Tofollo from Milan who will stay till Christmas, and our almost "naturalized" post-doc Miguel Ballesteros Jiménez from Spain. We thank to all people who joined us and helped in the field!
We continue in our promising project on support open habitats in abandoned sand pits using geocaching. Visitors help to disturb the dead biomass layer and turfs by trampling thus mintaining bare substrate suitable for competitively weak species of plants and endangered species of insects.
This week, we continue with sampling of flowering strips in the Stromovka city park and the University campus, this time with the help of the Italian student Chiara, who joined our group thanks to the Erasmus + program. Besides many oxeye daisies (Leucanthemum vulgare), we found for example white bedstraw (Galium album), yellow chamomile (Anthemis tinctoria) or yellow mignonette (Reseda lutea). We are curious about the species which we record during the repeated sampling at the end of summer.
It has become a tradition to visit southern Moravia and sample permanent plots in NNR Váté písky in June. Since 2012, Restoration ecology group has monitored the process of vegetation succession of plots restored with removal of top soil layer with expansive grass Calamagrostis epigejos. Even after seven years since the plot establishemnt, most of them still maintain open character. They can thus serve as a refugia for a number of species typical of open sandy habitats which are almost absent in the agrarian landscape of southern Moravia.
Last week, our working group together with the help of one of our external members, Luboš Tichý, returned to PLA Podyjí. Last year we established permanent plots in two localities – former military area Mašovice and heathland Havraníky. Both localities are grazed by wild horses (Exmoor ponies).
On Wednesday, May 22 we once more transported sheep to the island in the Cep II sand pit. The sheep stayed there for a whole week and they grazed our experimental plots for restoration of dry grasslands where bird's-foot trefoil (Lotus corniculatus) and wood small-reed (Calamgrostis epigejos) started to overgrow the psamophytic vegetation.
