The game park in Lany
(50°50'N; 13°55'E) is quite close to the capitol city of the Czech Republic
Prague with more than 1,000,000 inhabitants. Even quite close to one of the
largest and heavily naturally exploited areas in the Europe, is a part of
UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and Landscape Protected Area, and is furthermore planned
to be a part of a new National Park Krivoklatsko.
 |
| Figure 1. Open and sunny conditions with solitary trees in pastures of Lany |
The area (30 km2)
of probably one of the largest European ancient woodlands was historically
established for game hunting for nobility in the early Middle Ages. The Game
Park managers have recently been keeping red, fallow and sika deer, mouflon and
wild boar. The area of this
ancient woodland is known to be a habitat of many threatened species including
those highly connected with woodlands – i.e. saproxylics exploiting disparate
dead wood habitats. From those well known, e.g. due to Natura 2000, are there
stable beetle populations of the violet click beetle (Limoniscus violaceus), the great Capricorn beetle (Cerambyx cerdo), the hermit beetle (Osmoderma banabita) and the stag beetle
(Lucanus cervus).
We have been focusing
on diversity of saproxylic beetles and working in Lany from 2009. Our first
results approved that Lany Game Park is the hot spot of whole Krivoklatsko –
known as one of the hottest places of biodiversity in the Czech Republic.
Figure 2. Probably the finest woodland and grassland mosaic nearby the pond of Kougl
 |
| Figure 3. Sparce structures with favourable light conditions are also within woodlands with lower pressure of game stocks |
 |
| Figure 4. High game stocks are great competitors of late succession plants often causing the presence of shaded woodlands |
The main conclusion of
our long term research activities has showed that the open structures with
scattered sun-exposed trees are one of the most suitable places for most
beetles, including saproxylics. On the other hand, these sparse woodland structures
are one of those most threatened, especially due to their low commercial attractiveness
and thus game parks are probably the last places of conservation of ancient
pasture woodlands.
References
Horak J, Rebl K (2012) The
species richness of click beetles in ancient pasture woodland benefits from a
high level of sun exposure. Journal of Insect Conservation DOI:
10.1007/s10841-012-9511-2.
Rebl K (2010) Results of faunistic survey of
beetles (Coleoptera) in the territory of Protected Landscape Area and
Biospheric Reservation Krivoklatsko (Czech Republic). Elateridarium 4: 1–253
Jakub Horak & Karel Rebl
jakub.sruby(at)gmail.com
No comments:
Post a Comment