Petr Zasadil

Czech University of Life Sciences Prague | CULS · Department of Ecology

As a species closely associated with people and urban areas, the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) was expected to prosper with increased urbanization. Over the past few decades, however, house sparrow populations have decreased in many towns and cities around the world. The most commonly mentioned reasons for these decreases are lack of food, espe...

Forest plantations represent a globally important land use, and their growth is expected to triple by the end of the century. Therefore, they could represent an important habitat remnant to support the survival of species. We measured the impact of forest plantations on biodiversity with a focus on eight groups of biota including saproxylic and gro...

One of the main questions in ecology and conservation is how organisms are governed and affected by their traits within the context of abiotic gradients. The main question of our study addresses how patch, topography, and land use influence conservation trait status (rarity and red-list index) of birds generally, and of farmland and woodland specia...

Large trees (also termed veteran trees or habitat trees) are keystone structures for biodiversity worldwide. Retention forestry aims to keep large trees in production stands to support biodiversity. Nevertheless, there is insufficient information about the effect of large trees on biodiversity and how many large trees should be left in different ty...

Although natural disturbances are likely to occur more frequently and be more severe in future as a result of climate change, we have little evidence concerning the effect of disturbance size and severity on species diversity. We aimed to compare effects of varying size and severity of natural disturbances on bird species composition in the non-int...

Steadily increasing human population is changing the environment in many ways. One of the most disturbing impacts is the development of anthropogenic noise pollution connected to ever-growing traffic intensity. The road network can have both positive and negative effects on biodiversity and populations. Many bird species use acoustic communication...

More frequent and severe natural disturbances are likely to increase as a result of climate change. However, we have little evidence of the disturbance severity effect on forest birds. We aimed to compare the effect of natural disturbance severity on the bird species in the spruce forests of Šumava NP. For this purpose, we surveyed bird communities...

Book of abstracts from the 6th European Congress of Conservation Biology, which was held in Prague, on the campus of the Czech University of Life Sciences, on August 22 - 26, 2022. The main theme was "Biodiversity crisis in a changing world". The organizers of the congress were the Society for Conservation Biology - European Section and the Czech U...

The study compares number of species and abundance of birds under three different types of conservation management: i) two cuttings (TC), ii) one late cutting (for Corncrake support; OLC), and iii) extensive cattle grazing (ECG). All treatments are among the agri-environmental schemes used for grassland management in protected areas. Bird surveys...

Singing activity under traffic noise: a case study of yellowhammer around highways

Results of bird census carried out in forest stands damaged by natural large-scale disturbances in the Šumava National Park. Abstract book available at: http://www.silvagabreta.eu/obsah/upd04/Abstracts_prezentationCZ.pdf

The rural landscapes surrounding large cities are rapidly becoming incorporated into the urban environment. The most conspicuous changes involve green spaces, such as former agro-forestry systems like fruit orchards. In this paper, we assess the influence on biodiversity of restoring a large urban traditional fruit orchard as reflected by six selec...

Worldwide forests fragmentation has lead to a massive increase of habitat edges, creating both negative and positive impacts on birds. While busy highways dissecting forested areas create edges which are known to reduce bird densities due to the disturbing effect of noise, the impacts of logging forest roads with low traffic volumes have rarely bee...

Alterations to riverine ecosystems and the establishment of new man-made habitats along rivers have been accompanied by changes in vegetation composition and structure, which affect the birds inhabiting riparian stands. We examined the differences between bird communities inhabiting the relict growth of river meanders and those inhabiting secondary...

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