The evolution of different foraging strategies, corresponding echolocation signals and adaptations of wing morphologies allowed niche differentiation and sympatric foraging habitat use of bat species. We investigated how different habitat selection transferred into sympatric species groups (“bat communities”). The occurrence of bat species at different transects and landscape structures of five sites of a low mountain range forest in the south west of Germany was determined. Species were present at transects in the following descending order: Pipistrellus pipistrellus > Myotis myotis > Nyctalus leisleri > N. noctula > Myotis daubentonii > Eptesicus serotinus > Plecotus austriacus. We analyzed patterns of habitat use and evaluated differences in community structure. Landscape structures (patch types) influenced more than geographical location of sites within the landscape the bat community structure. Bat communities at individual forest sites disaggregated into different smaller species groups of one to at least eight species at different landscape structures. The results confirm previously proposed models of foraging habitat use of bats. Species groups clustered in correlation with the landscape structures “open area” (clearance or grassland), “closed or open canopy forest”, and “still water”. The highest bat diversity foraged predominantly at open canopy forest, which may fulfil best the requirements of several distinct functional groups (guilds) of bats.
By a patent of 10 March 1770, Empress Maria Teresa ordered a register and census to be carried out in Bohemia, Lower Austria and the Habsburg Erblande of all persons, draft animals and houses with the aim of reorganizing military sectors and determining the defensive capability of the population. Conscription was carried out door-to-door by senior army officers in conjunction with regional commissars, or in the case of Prague with councillors from the various municipalities. In Prague New Town, the recruitment commission began work on 1 October 1770 and finished on 19 February 1771. This study is devoted to members of the painting profession – painters and their assistants (varnishers and gilders) – whose names are to be found in these records. Painters were to some extent a special case since, unlike most other artisans, they were legally permitted to carry out their trade in various different ways. The study thus looks not only at the circumstances, origin and age of individual artists, but also aims to describe the different ways in which they could conduct their profession. Examining the conscription records, it also becomes clear what a rich source they represent, providing invaluable insights into the population of Prague in the latter half of the 18th century.
Spring and summer composition and species richness of bruchid pre-dispersal seed predator assemblages associated with species of leguminous plants were monitored in a four-year non-experimental survey of 32 service areas along five highways in Hungary. The vegetation bands along highways (delimited by fences) were considered a special type of ecotone where herbaceous plants are exposed to regular mowing and therefore the composition of the vegetation there is very different from the adjacent vegetation. Altogether 57 herbaceous and woody species of leguminous plants were recorded at these sites, harbouring 20 autochthonous, 3 allochthonous, but established, and 4 recently introduced species of bruchid seed predators (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Bruchinae). The species of leguminous plants recorded along highway verges during this project make up approximately one fourth of the Fabaceae in Hungary and of the bruchids ca. 80 % (!) of the species known to occur in Hungary. At half of the service areas, mowing decreased the species richness of leguminous plants compared to that recorded prior to mowing, but not that of their bruchid seed predators. However, the species composition of the bruchid assemblages before and after mowing changed substantially. Null-model analyses indicated a random organization of spring assemblages and a deterministic one of summer assemblages of bruchids; very likely a result of host-specificity constraints. Calculations of host specificity confirmed the narrow host range recorded for bruchids that emerged from the samples of plants, in spite of new host records, such as three and two Trifolium species for Bruchidius picipes and Bi. sp. prope varius sensu Anton, respectively, Oxytropis pilosa for Bi. marginalis and Vicia cracca for Bruchus brachialis. Our results show that a surprisingly high number of species of bruchids occur in highway margins, however, the management of the vegetation there prevents a substantial portion of the native bruchid fauna establishing permanent populations.
This paper summarizes results of the participative ethnographic researchi nto a warlike community (so-called “guild”) that occurs in the virtual settings of the game Guild Wars 2. The attention is paid especially to the organization and adaptation mechanisms of the players as well as to the analysis of their functional modus operandi (sophisticated organization of so-called “rushes” and emergency mechanisms of offensive group formation). The article deals also with the analysis of cultural production of virtual communities (so-called “machinima”, guides/gameplays“ and playing modification of electronic encyclopaedias), which significantly falls outside the inter-subjective scope in the form of (theoretical and practical) correlation with the development of contemporary warfare - in particular with the conception known as “swarming”.