Our "field laboratory" in the Cep II sand pit was designed in the autumn of 2012 thanks to a cooperation of the mining company, scientists and the Administration of the PLA Třeboňsko. Since 2013, we have regularly monitored the development of vegetation in plots with different slopes, or landscaping, and in forestry reclaimed plots. In collaboration with entomologists, selected groups of insects have also been monitored. However, the attention of our group is currently shifting to projects related to the effect of grazing of large herbivores on vegetation, and urban ecology (especially flowering strips). Therefore, after six years of intensive monitoring, last year and this year the vegetation sampling took place only in plots that were originally designed as shallow or periodically flooded, but due to drop of water table in the mining lake, they became dry shortly after construction. We will continue to monitor the development of vegetation in our "field laboratory", from now on in longer intervals though.
Karel Prach and his colleague Lawrence R Walker published the book entitled Comparative Plant Succession among Terrestrial Biomes of the World. It is a comprehensive summary of his lifelong research on plant succession.
Cache "hunters" have been contributing to the nature conservation in South Bohemian sand pits already for five years. How? By catching their cache, they disturb the turfs of grasses and the layer of litter, thus maintaining plots of bare sand which can then be colonized by psammophilous species of plants and insects. And it really works!
Althoug the weather was not too good, we enjoyed a lot of fun anyway. This time we met during the sampling of flowering strips in the campus of the Faculty of Science USB and the Biology Centre CAS. Some parts of the strips are overgrown with grasses, we however believe that everything will turn out well, and that with extensive management we can suppress the grasses and let the sown herbs stand out in full beauty.
... this time in Milovice where we also monitor plots grazed by large herbivores or left without any treatment. During the adventurous crossing of the pasture Traviny, a horse ran in front of our car.
We traditionally spent the beginning of June by sampling of the permanent plots at Váté písky near Bzenec. This year, it was already the eighth season of monitoring of restoration of the psammophytic vegetation on plots where the upper layers of soil were removed together with the expansive bushgrass (Calamagrostis epigejos). Thanks to this intervention, rare psammophytic plant species returned to the plots.
The flowering strips in the Stromovka city park are cut. Only partially, in fact. This time we chosde mosaic cutting for their maintenance. The reason is that they can flower again in a few weeks, and they cannot be overgrown with competitive grasses which would displace the sown species of herbs. Therefore, after the currently flowering parts of the strips stop flowering, the cut parts begin to flower and consequently the strip will make insects and people happy continuously.
Monitoring of the effect of grazing of large herbivores on the development of vegetation continues also this year. We have established new experimental plots in Josefovské louky near Jaroměř. Klára describes what an amazing adventure it was: "We didn't get wet at all and experienced a beautiful sunny day, walking through flooded sedgesand sinking into the mud in the reeds, wading through a forest and even a beautiful wet meadow. And, of course, we saw horses!"
