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Horses and vegetation
Třeštíková, Tereza ; Herben, Tomáš (advisor) ; Mládek, Jan (referee)
Many studies show that large herbivores can have an important impact on the composition of vegetation. With the establishment of a year round, low density grazing regime, plant ecologists and nature managers expect that through selective grazing, herbivores will create a mosaic of different vegetation communities varying in structure and plant species composition. It is believed that such a mosaic in the end will guarantee a high degree of biodiversity. Grazing will, therefore, seem to be a suitable means to maintain grass. Also important is the ability of herbivores affect vegetation through endozoochory. In this thesis I have tried to find out what species of diet horses prefer regarding to plant species and what plant species they can spread through out endozoochory. I have compared this knowledge with the composition of pasture and meadow vegetation at the researched locality in Malenice and Hoslovice. With the purpose of finding out the preferences I established spots where I registered data on vegetation before pasture and the time intervals during the pasture. Afterwards, I researched the amount of sprouts and the composition of seedlings in excrements that I let germinate. I had to create phytocenologic shots from the pastures and meadows to compare the species of composition of grazed and...
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Species diversity of meadows and pastures on small spatial scale
Bartoš, Michael ; Vojta, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Skálová, Hana (referee)
Grazing seems to be not only means of conserving species diversity of grasslands but also - in many cases - of its increasing. This thesis tries to find out the mechanisms of grazing that result in increased or decreased species diversity. The experiment was proceeded in Slupenec, a part of Český Krumlov, where horse pastures are situated. In order to compare grazing and mowing I collected phytosociological data from plots 1 x 1 mš. I also collected data about soil moisture, composition and pH in order to find out the main gradients in vegetation. The vegetation data from plots 20 x 20 cmš were collected before and after grazing on three pasturelands. In the chosen locality, higher level of plant species diversity have been proven on pastures in comparison with meadows. There is significantly higher percentage of plots contributing to the higher level of ß diversity on pastures than on meadows. At the same time the variability of vegetation was in most cases explained by the categorial variable pasture / meadow. Concerning selectivity of grazing, it has been proven that horses prefer grazing on species with greater cover abundance. The plots with lower rate of grazed species have got higher ß diversity. In terms of functional traits of plants, it has been proven that higher percentage of no-rosette...
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Horses and vegetation
Třeštíková, Tereza ; Herben, Tomáš (advisor) ; Mládek, Jan (referee)
Many studies show that large herbivores can have an important impact on the composition of vegetation. With the establishment of a year round, low density grazing regime, plant ecologists and nature managers expect that through selective grazing, herbivores will create a mosaic of different vegetation communities varying in structure and plant species composition. It is believed that such a mosaic in the end will guarantee a high degree of biodiversity. Grazing will, therefore, seem to be a suitable means to maintain grass. Also important is the ability of herbivores affect vegetation through endozoochory. In this thesis I have tried to find out what species of diet horses prefer regarding to plant species and what plant species they can spread through out endozoochory. I have compared this knowledge with the composition of pasture and meadow vegetation at the researched locality in Malenice and Hoslovice. With the purpose of finding out the preferences I established spots where I registered data on vegetation before pasture and the time intervals during the pasture. Afterwards, I researched the amount of sprouts and the composition of seedlings in excrements that I let germinate. I had to create phytocenologic shots from the pastures and meadows to compare the species of composition of grazed and...
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|
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Species diversity of meadows and pastures on small spatial scale
Bartoš, Michael ; Vojta, Jaroslav (advisor) ; Skálová, Hana (referee)
Grazing seems to be not only means of conserving species diversity of grasslands but also - in many cases - of its increasing. This thesis tries to find out the mechanisms of grazing that result in increased or decreased species diversity. The experiment was proceeded in Slupenec, a part of Český Krumlov, where horse pastures are situated. In order to compare grazing and mowing I collected phytosociological data from plots 1 x 1 mš. I also collected data about soil moisture, composition and pH in order to find out the main gradients in vegetation. The vegetation data from plots 20 x 20 cmš were collected before and after grazing on three pasturelands. In the chosen locality, higher level of plant species diversity have been proven on pastures in comparison with meadows. There is significantly higher percentage of plots contributing to the higher level of ß diversity on pastures than on meadows. At the same time the variability of vegetation was in most cases explained by the categorial variable pasture / meadow. Concerning selectivity of grazing, it has been proven that horses prefer grazing on species with greater cover abundance. The plots with lower rate of grazed species have got higher ß diversity. In terms of functional traits of plants, it has been proven that higher percentage of no-rosette...
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