With the arrival of spring, we headed to South Moravia again to continue with our monitoring of insects and vegetation on selected green roofs. Due to unstable weather last year, we missed spring sampling on several roofs in Brno and its surroundings. The spring sampling is thus now completed. In addition, we have expanded our monitoring to roofs in Zaječí and Hodonín, where we will observe vegetation development and invertebrate occurrence throughout the year.
During our visit to the House of Nature in the Hodonínská Dúbrava, we checked not only the green roof but also a nearby sand dune. This rare habitat represents an important nesting site for several species of solitary bees, such as Colletes cunicularius and Andrena sp. (see the photos below).
This project is co-financed with state support from the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic under the Programme Prostředí pro život. This project was funded under the National Recovery Plan from the European Instrument of Recovery and Resilience Facility.
#BioStřechy
Spring attracts us out to visit new locations suitable for sampling. This time we visited Southern Moravia, specifically Vypálenky near Moravský Písek. In cooperation with the Brno-based Envirop group, we are going to expand our grazing database with new locations. These are places that are often highly degraded, but thanks to the grazing of large herbivores, interesting biotopes could be created. The aim of the one-day trip was to harmonise methodology, establish permanent monitoring areas and consult on management. In the afternoon, we still managed to visit the Kosteliska Bird Park, where we had already worked last season. We added a few more samoling plots there and enjoyed the flocks of geese. We are already looking forward to sharing our discoveries with our colleagues from Brno.
Recently, we have visited the Československá armáda (ČSA) brown coal quarry near Most. The quarry will become a National Nature Monument after the mine is closed. Ester Šůsová, our new Bachelor student, will focus on aquatic and wetland communities in the quarry in her thesis. The aim is to compare the species richness of smaller water pools formed spontaneously on the spoil hepas with large mine lakes such as Lake Most.
On Thursday, March 6th we had a tandem lecture in our partner school Agricultural College and Agricultural Secondary School Benešov. Lenka and Anička gave a talk that could be called "Everything you wanted to know about ecological restoration but were afraid to ask, in 90 minutes". In addition to the theoretical ecological principles, the students also learned about practical examples of the use of ecological restoration. It was a whirlwind, but according to the results of the final informal quiz, it seems that the students learned something after all.
The Restoration Ecology Working Group participated again in the conference Two Days with Didactics of Biology held on 6 and 7 February in Prague. This conference focuses on selected problems of biology education and practical suggestions for teaching science and biology. Lenka gave a talk entitled "What is restoration ecology and how to teach about it" in front of about 70 teachers form primary and secondary schools and other professionals involved in teaching of science and biology. In addition to a brief introduction to the topic of ecological restoration, she introduced the TEAM#UP teaching materials that are currently under developement and their format, including a short preview of an educational video and an illustrative virtual tour of a selected demonstration site of ecological restoration, the Nature Monument Pískovna u Dračice. These materials are currently being pilot tested at our partner VET school 
Do you want to know what happened in TEAM#UP in the second half of 2024? In the third edition of the 
Petra Janečková shared her knowledge about the vegetation on green roofs with the seminar participants on Thursday, January 9th. In an ongoing project, Petra had the opportunity to visit a variety of green roofs and get an overview of the rare and also invasive plant species occurring there.
The beginning of a new year is usually the best time for summarizing, evaluating and planning. And it is not different in our "spring" project. On January 8th, we met with other members of the project team to evaluate the past season, plan the upcoming season and agree on the further work on the project results. All of the challenges that arose during the past season have been solved, and therefore we await the comming season full of enthusiasm.
