In a forest near the present village of Miłosławice in Silesia, 34 mounds of various sizes were found that are the results of human activity. Research including excavations of two of them has not proved the original intention of the mound builders, and only one burnt human bone makes it impossible to interpret the whole area as barrow cemetery, but the plough marks found under a large mound are interesting. Both the stratigraphy and pollen data enable us to prove a change in land use, which took place between 6 and 8th centuries AD as 14C dating from the mounds revealed. The paper aims to present and discuss the ard furrows discovered recently under a large round mound at Miłosławice. The study is focused on the remains of the furrows and their stratigraphical relationship with the mounds. and V lese nedaleko dnešní vsi Miłosławice ve Slezsku bylo objeveno 34 mohyl různé velikosti, které jsou pozůstatkem lidské aktivity. Výzkum zahrnující odkryv dvou z nich neprokázal původní záměr stavitelů mohyl; jediná přepálená lidská kost neumožňuje interpretovat celou lokalitu jako mohylové pohřebiště, pozoruhodné jsou však stopy orby zjištěné pod jednou z velkých mohyl. Jak stratigrafická, tak palynologická data nám dovolují prokázat změnu využití půdy, která se odehrála mezi 6. a 8. stol. n. l., jak dokládá 14C datování vzorků z mohyl. Cílem článku je prezentovat a diskutovat orební brázdy nedávno objevené pod velkou okrouhlou mohylou. Studie se zaměřuje na stopy brázd a jejich stratigrafický vztah s mohylami.
The distribution of Galeopsis ladanum in Germany and adjacent regions was determined by a revision of specimens of Galeopsis subgen. Ladanum in major Central European herbaria. This distribution was compared with that indicated in plant atlases. For the west of Germany, beyond the range of G. ladanum, plant atlases are often misleading as they indicate the presence of this species throughout two German states and Luxembourg, but no herbarium records could be found for these regions. In other federal states, herbarium material indicated a historical distribution that is not reflected in plant atlases. Some Red Data Books give wrong assessments of the degree of endangerment. Exaggerated ranges are mapped if (i) guide books are misleading, (ii) recorders are unfamiliar with the species and (iii) similar species exist.
This is the first complete inventory of alien vascular plant taxa for the Slovak Republic. The presented database contains information on family affiliation, residence status, invasion status, time of introduction, mode of introduction, planting purpose, abundance and distribution within phytogeographic regions, types of invaded habitats and syntaxa, and life forms and geographical origin of the alien taxa. In total, 21.5% of the total flora is made of up of alien taxa, comprised of 282 archaeophytes that make up 6.6% and 634 neophytes 14.9% of the total number of taxa, respectively. The majority of the alien taxa are casuals (57.6%), 39.1% are naturalized and 3.3% invasive. Most of them come from Europe (32.8%) and Asia (32.8%), followed by Africa (12.2%) and North America (10.8%). The database contains members of 98 families of which the Asteraceae, Brassicaceae, Fabaceae, Poaceae, Amaranthaceae and Rosaceae are the most represented. Almost 50% of the alien taxa are therophytes. Hemicryptophytes (26.3%) and phanerophytes (15.6%) are also abundant. More of the alien taxa were introduced deliberately (49.0%) than unintentionally (43.9%), and the majority were introduced as ornamental plants (55.9%). Of the total number of alien taxa, 45.2% are recorded from less than five localities. Most of them prefer human-made habitats; they are found in 137 phytosociological alliances, with those richest in alien taxa categorized as synanthropic vegetation.
As urbanisation is set to continue, understanding the impact on wildlife becomes increasingly important if we are to be able to conserve biodiversity. As an excellent group of bioindicators, invertebrates can allow us to understand some of the forces in urban areas which impact upon biodiversity and wildlife populations. This paper discusses some of the trends in the abundance, diversity and richness of invertebrates related to urbanisation and the specific urban environmental and traffic factors which may be at play., Elizabeth L. Jones, Simon R. Leather., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
Since 1978, the abundance of Coccinella septempunctata L. has been recorded at a hibernation site in the western Czech Republic. Over the years, abundance varied by two orders of magnitude and a long-term trend for decrease in C. septempunctata abundance was observed beginning in the early 1990s. This recession was correlated with the decreasing abundance of its dominant prey, cereal aphids. The acreage of small grain cereals and other crops suitable for breeding C. septempunctata populations also decreased. The change in abundance of cereal aphids may be associated with a dramatic decrease in fertilizer input after 1990. Decreasing fertilizer use has changed the quality of small grain cereal crops and is reflected in lower yields.
The objective of the study was to evaluate the spatial distribution of peakflow pre-event water contributions and streamwater residence times with emphasis on land use patterns in 38 subcatchments within the 687 km2 large mesoscale transboundary catchment Lužická Nisa. Mean residence times between 8 and 27 months and portions of pre-event water between 10 and 97% on a storm event peakflow were determined, using 18O data in precipitation and streamwater from a weekly monitoring of nearly two years. Only a small tracer variation buffering effect of the lowland tributaries on the main stem was observed, indicating the dominant impact on the mountainous headwaters on the runoff generation. Longest mean streamwater residence times of 27 months were identified in the nearly natural headwaters of the Jizera Mountains, revealing no ambiguous correlation between the catchment area and altitude and the mean resi-dence time of streamwater. Land use control on the pre-event water portions were determined for three land use catego-ries with percentage of urban areas from 0 to 10%, 10 to 20% and more than 20%. The fraction of pre-event water in the first category decreases from 97% to 65% with the increasing percentage of forest from 76% to 100%, revealing that for-ests may provide only a limited infiltration of precipitation due to leaf interception and soil water use for transpiration. Fractions of pre-event water of 39–87% in the second (agricultural catchments) and of 10–35% in the third (urbanized catchments) category increase with percentage of non-urban areas.