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City as a place of mind - Wilderness in public space
Vondrušková, Eliška ; Pfeiffer, Jan (advisor) ; Tsikoliya, Lenka (referee)
The thesis discusses the phenomenon of a city with a special focus on public space and its wilderness aspect. It examines the city as a place for non-human organisms to inhabit and discovers its specific habitat, which is populated by a vague terrain of various sizes. It traces the relationship between the city and nature, how this relationship has evolved throughout history, and how nature is brought into cities in the form of gardens and parks. It alludes to the theme of the second nature that surrounds cities. The main theme is urban wilderness, the uninvited nature of cities and its aspects. The aim of this thesis is to explore the topic of urban wilderness, its aspects and manifestations, which are then didactically transformed. This is preceded by the study of literature and fieldwork, which includes archiving and mapping of different spaces. The central city for this exploration is my birthplace and hometown of Prague which enables observation on an everyday basis (whether intended or unintended). The didactic part of the thesis focuses on the transformation of the topic into three wholly different art assignments, which offer the students three different perspectives. Each perspective is tied to their personal experience and two of the perspectives also directly include their presence in...
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Photobiont plurality in lichen thalli
Dědková, Kamila ; Steinová, Jana (advisor) ; Vančurová, Lucie (referee)
Photobiont plurality refers to the presence of multiple photobionts within a single lichen thallus. This phenomenon was described at the end of the last century but has received deeper attention in the last decade. The available literature on this topic is limited. This bachelor thesis summarizes all the important findings published on plurality to date. The most common photobionts coexisting in a thallus are algae of the genus Trebouxia, but other algae and cyanobacteria more or less phylogenetically related may also coexist together. Thallus with multiple photobionts is formed either at the beginning by the association of hyphae with several photobionts at once (horizontal transport) or by the acquisition of additional photobionts during life (vertical transport). The most important factors affecting the cooccurrence of multiple photobionts in a single thallus are probably the specificity and selectivity of mycobionts and local environmental conditions. The plurality of photobionts has been found in more than fifty lichen species. Many important findings have been described in a model lichen Ramalina farinacea. Its coexisting photobionts differ in responses to several environmental, mostly stress conditions, suggesting that the presence of multiple photobionts in a thallus may provide an...
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Vliv tvaru potravních zdrojů na společenstva afrického koprofilního hmyzu
HELCLOVÁ, Michaela
This research focuses on communities of tropical dung-inhabiting insects and their relation to spatial parametres of their habitats, namely the dung pat shape and surface area. Study was carried out in South Africa. The aim of the study is to test differences in functional structure of coprophilous communities, its abundance and species richness across normal dung pats and dung pats with four times larger surface area. The results suggest that preference for habitat with different areas plays a crucial role for avoiding competition between dung-inhabiting insects.
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Transgenerational effects of plant biotic interactions
PUY GUTIÉRREZ, Javier
This thesis focuses on the transgenerational effects triggered by plant biotic interactions and explores their relevance on ecological and evolutionary processes. The following sections document novel results that show their important consequences on different aspects. Primarily, we established the necessary methodology to be able to explore these questions and to disentangle the mechanisms originating the transgenerational plasticity by validating a demethylation method. Then, we checked whether the biotic interactions alter the phenotype via within-generation and transgenerational plasticity, examining the magnitude and direction of the response on each specific "response traits". Lastly, the potential role of transgenerational plasticity for adaptation, species coexistence, creating biodiversity and population and ecosystem functioning is tested.
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Minority{\crq}s problems and their engagement into the social life {--} with respect to Romany community (social aspect)
FRÍD, Lukáš
To highlight the most serious problems of Romany ethnic minority in Czech Republic and to reveal the reasons of that problems, it was my main aim in the thesis. I traced the long history of the Romany ethnic group (see the 2nd chapter) and I tried to find out the roots of nowdays problems of Romans in ours, especially in social area and in the way of coexistence with czech majority. The 3rd chapter reflects the present day situation of Romany in the Czech Republic {--} their social and societa status. In the last part of the thesis (chapters 4, 5, 6), I described three topics where I want to show the obvious link between the insufficient Romany education {$\rightarrow$} the deficit in skilled qualification {$\rightarrow$} the high unemployment rate in Romany community {$\rightarrow$} and the subsequent social exlusion with all the pathological phenomenons such as criminality, drugs and prostitution.
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Neighborhood
Bartoš, Roman ; Rudiš, Martin (referee) ; Mléčka, Jan (advisor)
For millennia people modified and adjusted their surroundings in an endless hunt for comfort, safety and survival. Humanity grew, evolved, matured and died together. The environment directly reflected the efforts made by its community. Families lived under one roof together, right next to the village common. Humans knew to respect the nature and coexisted with it. This changed drastically over the last couple centuries. After several technological breakthroughs and a few wars the technological evolution accelerated right out of control. The need for a neighborhood begun to fade. Sunday markets were replaced by supermarkets, eye-to-eye talks became scarce as we glued ourselves to various screens. Low fences were replaced by tall concrete walls, we built a system of selfish private bubbles. NEIGHBOR+HOOD attempts to find a compromise between both extremes. It is understanding and balance among the spaces for ME and the spaces for US. It is a place for neighbors, a tight-knit community of friends under one tree, sitting at a common table. It is a natural, comfortable, peaceful, safe and humane environment in the suburbs. The design offers to the fictional inhabitants of Udánky hill an opportunity to identify with their home and its surroundings. All that and more in total symbiosis with surrounding nature. NEIGHBOR+HOOD is human, self-sustaining, ecological housing estate. It is the home of neighborhood.
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From sea to summit
Staniczek, Jan ; Solčáni, Ján (referee) ; Šrámek, Jan (advisor)
In my thesis I try to convey strange feelings that are inherently connected with post-anthropocentric, ecological thinking of inter-object coexistence, through an installation of a series of clay speakers. From a theoretical point of view, I rely upon Fisher's conception of weird and Morton's conception of dark ecology, in which I found a surprisingly apt articulation of my own feelings, as well as inspiration for further thinking and imagination. The main points in the otherwise difficult to define direction of my work are the planes of blurring borders, ephemerality of experience and intimate contact with otherness.
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Factors associated with invasiveness in the genus Impatiens: interaction of species traits, competition and environment
Čuda, Jan ; Pyšek, Petr (advisor) ; Kollmann, Johannes (referee) ; Prach, Karel (referee)
The aim of this thesis was to identify factors that contribute to invasiveness of species in the genus Impatiens. This genus is horticulturally attractive and includes several species that are known to have naturalized outside their native ranges, while others did not escape, in spite of being frequently cultivated. When looking for traits associated with invasiveness, it is useful to focus on congeneric species. Their traits and dispersal modes are less influenced by phylogeny, than when comparing unrelated species or even complete floras. This helps to account for traits that favour invasive species over native ones and thus identify potential invaders more precisely. A superior invader performance is attributed to a competitive advantage over native species that can lead in extreme case to competitive exclusion of the latter. Invasive and native species com- pete only if their niches overlap and the strength of competition depends on niche similarity. Importantly, invasive species are considered to be able to maintain their high competitiveness over a wide range of environmental conditions, while native ones often have narrower environ- mental optima. Lastly, competitive outcome can vary over life stages and depends on the degree of species dominance, which is rarely taken into account. Spread and...
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