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Marine Mammals as Apex Predators
Slavíčková, Tereza ; Černý, Martin (advisor) ; Storch, David (referee)
Amongst marine mammals there are many predators, however only four species can be considered truly apex predators. Polar bears, killer whales, leopard seals and sperm whales all dominate their environments, moreover, killer whales and sperm whales hold their position at the top of trophic relationships globally. Apart from being generally abundant and being large in relation to their closely related species, these four predators share very little. They differ in social structure, foraging ecology, life histories and levels of intraspecific cooperation. Very few studies focus on what characteristics makes each one of them such a dominant predator. Considering how abundant these species and their prey are, there is not enough research exploring predatory and non-predatory interactions with other large mammalian predators of our oceans. Our understanding of trophic relationships, large predators' influence on species hierarchy and ecosystem balance is poor. Considering the influence human population has on the oceans and large marine predators, more future research should be focused on exploring the complex interspecific relationships.
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Legal regulation of the protection of sea mammals
Makovec, Vojtěch ; Damohorský, Milan (advisor) ; Žákovská, Karolina (referee)
The topic of this master thesis is the international legal regulation of the protection of marine mammals. The thesis concentrates primarily on the analysis of the species based international law instruments for the protection of the individual marine mammal species. This thesis is divided into six chapters. The first chapter addresses the main principles of the international environmental law, which have the biggest influence on the protection of marine mammals (biodiversity protection, precautionary principle and sustainable development). The second chapter describes the regulation of fisheries, which is closely related to the protection of marine mammals. This part deals with the historical beginning of the international regulation of fisheries, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the division of the sea areas, regulation of individual fish species and the regulation of fisheries after the UNCLOS. The particular instruments of protection of individual species of marine mammals except Cetaceans are described in the third chapter (i.e. polar bears, Pinnipeds and Sirenidae). The protection of Cetaceans is analyzed in detail in the fourth chapter. The protection of whales on the ground of International Whaling Commission is accented. This chapter describes also the standpoint of the whaling countries...
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