More than 50 participants from different parts of the country attended a workshop called "Plants and fungi in sand pits: protection and management" held on Thursday 6. November and organized by Calla - Association for Preservation of the Environment.
Members of the Restoration ecology working group contributed significantly to the content of the workshop. Kamila Lencová presented a short overview of biotopes in sand pits. Lenka Šebelíková gave a talk about various aspects of forestry reclamation. The largest contribution had Klára Řehounková who familiarized the participants with the issue of invasive plants in sand pits, successional development and also ways how the successional process in sand pits can be manipulated.
A real proof of scientific activities within the Faculty of Science is the place between building B and C in the university campus. The place of intended parking place was transformed by colleagues from the Department of Botany into a collection of diverse biotopes. The place will serve for relaxation as well as for educational purposes. The space is dominated by a sand dune, imitation of actual sand dunes which are very rare in current human-altered landscape. The Restoration ecology group, under the leadership of "biomass boss" Klára Řehounková, will use methods of assisted succession to restore dry grasslands on the created sand dune - biomass transfers, surface trampling and sowing of target species.
The 9th European Conference on Ecological Restoration was held 3. - 8. August in Oulu, Finland. The topic of the conference was Restoration, Ecosystem Services and Land Use Policy. Members of our group participated at this conference with their talks and posters. Klára Řehounková started a special session called Passive restoration: can we let succession do the work? talking about "Disturbance as a tool for biodiversity: an interdisciplinary approach to restoration and conservation benefits of post-mining sites". Ondřej Mudrák with his presentation "What tell us initial species composition about the future progress in the spontaneous succession?" and Kamila Lencová presenting "How much do alien species participate in contemporary human-made habitats?" were among other speakers. Karel Prach gave his lecture called "Do not neglect surroundings in restoration of disturbed sites" in other session about resilience ecology. Students Ludmila Vlková a Lenka Šebelíková presented posters with results of their theses.
The main topic of this year's Ecology Olympiad was RESTORATION. The national contest was held 12. - 14. June in Hradce near České Budějovice. Members of our group were also involved in preparation and realization of the contest. Klára Řehounková prepared test questions and a post about ecological restoration at a scientific trail. She also set a practical assignment and evaluated it later as the chair of the jury. Karel Prach then gave a lecture on restoration ecology.
Entomologists from the University of South Bohemia have discovered several endangered species in the restored part of the Cep II sand pit. Some of these species are protected all over the Europe. Several dozens of small water pools were created during the restoration of the sand pit which now serve as habitats for rare and endangered organisms. Such habitats with low nutrient content are rare in the modern-day landscape.
New course Restoration Ecology II - Ecological Restoration was held in the summer semester for the first time. The course included also three excursions to different post-industrial sites. At the end of April students visited mining area Cep II, for which they were expected to prepare a restoration proposal, and other sand pits in the Třeboňsko region. A two-day excursion to the quarries in South Moravia and Vysočina Highlands followed in the middle of May. The whole course was closed with a short excursion to the settling basin at the edge of České Budějovice this week.
In two days we went through a large part of the Vysočina highlands, visited seven abandoned and also active quarries and were pleased to found out that quarries in the Vysočina highlands are not reclaimed or afforested but left to the spontaneous succession! Valuable successional stages are formed there, either with trees, flooded depressions or dry rocky habitats. Only one out of the seven visited quarries, Krásněves, was completely afforested with pine, spruce and larch, probably because of its large size. Quarries in the Vysočina highlands - an example of a good non-reclamation practice! 
The research activity on experimental plots in the Cep II sand pit has many aspects. Our team may have been confused with a cheerful bunch of excavation diggers theese days. Minor landslide of a slope above our experimental "chessboard" overlaid one of the plots and silted the drainage channel. It was therefore necessary to take up shovels. In addtion some of the experimental plots were disrupted by creation of small holes for seedlings establishment. In this case spades and rakes were the best working tools. However, not everybody participated equally in the excavation works as you can see in the pictures :).
