Restoration Ecology Group

After intense final weeks, ERASMUS+ TRAIN#ER project has completed its results. We greatly thank all participants of the survey and the focus group at the beginning of the project. We now invite you to take a look at the project outcomes:

https://epale.ec.europa.eu/en/erasmus/trainer-training-needs-ecological-restoration/final-results-trainer-project-training-needs

https://chapter.ser.org/europe/2023/02/27/final-results-of-the-trainer-project-training-needs-in-ecological-restoration-er

https://chapter.ser.org/europe/trainer

We are currently evaluating the possibility to organise a webinar and to set up a common database of training opportunities at different professional levels across Europe. We will keep you informed on these.

We have made a comment stating our opinion about the recently published Principles and Standards by Young et al. (2022) which provides an international framework for ecological restoration of mine sites. Although useful, we identified some limitations for practice, especially in Europe. For more details, please read:

Řehounková, K., Ballesteros, M., Alday, J.G., Nunes, A., Tischew, S., Kirmer, A. and Prach, K. (2023), A comment on “International principles and standards for the ecological restoration and recovery of mine sites”—useful but limited. Restor Ecol e13872. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.13872

Autumn is a perfect time for seed sowing, or regional seed biomass in our case, which was obtained by brushing suitable preserved dry grassland stands. We have established an experimental site where green hay was transferred earlier in the vegetation season. Now, part of the site was also sown with regional seed biomass. We are interested in the differences in the establishment and species composition in relation to the brushing time. Fieldwork is not over yet !!

This project is financed by EEA and Norway funds.

At the end of September, Knowledge Exchange Workshop took place in České Budějovice. During the very busy two days, we managed to discuss the state of knowledge in the field of ecological restoration in individual countries, summarize the results of surveys and propose recommendations on how to better disseminate the knowledge of ecological restoration among schools and practitioners. In addition, we showed the participants examples of ecological restoration in the urban environment and enjoyed quite fun.

The TRAIN#ER project is funded by the European Union.

At the end of September, we impatiently waited for sunny weather. It was necessary to sample the faculty garden, and especially to find out what a new plot seeded with "Šumava regional seed mixture" looks like. In the place where the bare land remained due to construction work, we established an experimental flowering meadow this spring using two methods: the sowing of a regional seed mixture, and the application of remnants after hay. The latter is a traditional method that was commonly used in the past. Everything that remained after hay storage in the barn was swept out. This material was very rich in seeds of a variety of species. It seems now, that the sowing of seeds wins as daisies, cornflowers, and carrots have already bloomed in the plot. But the next season will fully show the power of both methods.

Recently, we have intensively dealt with the topic of regional seed mixtures thanks to the project called 'Regional seed mixtures as an effective tool for protecting the diversity of grassland habitats' funded by Norway grants. We are testing various machines for brushing donor stands. And we are not the only ones who deal with this topic. For example, in Prague, they are testing their hand-made brushing machine. We agreed on cooperation and we will compare all the brushing machines at several localities in the Prague region next year.

This project was funded by EEA and Norway Grants. 

This year the flower strips in the Stromovka city park in České Budějovice are in great shape. All of them are beautiful and each one is different. You would say: "It's just a carrot ...", but judge yourself from the photos how aesthetic such plants are inside a mown park lawn.

A lot of people visit Carlsbad at the time of the Film Festival but this year an unexpected thing has happened - we visited it too. But only true connoisseurs scorn the red carpet, colonnade, and Vřídlo, pass the hotels PUP and Thermal, and head ..... to the waste dump. As soon as we got out of the car, a car of the Czech TV stopped nearby. Unfortunately, they did not follow us to the waste dump, even though we have a lot to offer. Our new bachelor student, Anička Grambalová, will design a biodiversity roof for the building that will be built on this neglected site. Because we need to know what grows and lives there, we went to the waste dump for the second time. And we were surprised about the number of species occurring in such a place.