Description
Biodiversity protection and habitat conservation on a global scale have received much attention over the past few decades. These issues have already found their place in national legislation and in worldwide NGO activities. No consensus has yet been reached concerning what mechanisms may stabilise species habitats over long periods. This can be attributed to the fact that the majority of ecological studies refer to the systems that are studied over shorter periods. We intend to overcome this limitation by anlysing long-term succession of the ecosystem parameters. For this purpose we will utilize archeological databases, and subfossil data across gradients of settlement history. This issue is more than a purely theoretical one. Our findings will elucidate the extent to which human activities have changed ecology, which have riddled nature conservation and landscape protection. Charles University in Prague, the Lillehammer University College, and the University of Bergen are involved.
Summary of project results
Biodiversity protection and habitat conservation on a global scale have received much attention over the past few decades. The main objective of the HABIT project was to collect data and start their analyses in respect of human impact on biodiversity and ecological rules. We aimed to build a database of palaeobotanical and archaeological data from Czechia and Norway, that were of comparable quality and that allow to compare these two regions in terms of biodiversity development and human activities. As a control dataset we planned to collect comparable recent data from both the regions and from Siberia. The top aim of the project was to test hypotheses on human and climate impact on biodiversity rules and to proceed with the proposed tests in close collaboration between Czech and Norway teams.We succeeded in all the points: (i) Database was finalized and shared, (ii) first tests were published and (iii) agreement about close, future collaboration has been done. Our research was a basic research with long term impact to society. We (i) developed new methods for palaeoecological research, (ii) shed light on the impact of arable agriculture and temperature variation on biodiversity rules, and (iii) identified riparian habitats as the habitats that have been robust against human management in terms of biodiversity functioning. 7 already published papers, 3 submitted papers and 3 already written papers (in progress), which are expected to be submitted within two months (all of them will be impacted). Further we delivered 8 abstracts or non-impacted popular articles with acknowledgement to the project; and disseminated our results via 24 presentations (one of them, the final exhibition is prepared, see web pages, and waiting for space).Scientific impact of our work (Impact Factor) is between 0.7 (Biologia) to 5.355 (Global Ecology and Biogeography) and 5.84 (Ecography). Scientists from three top institutions in the field, the Charles University, the Lillehammer University College, and the University of Bergen have together created a time machine in terms of computational methods and data enabling them to explore human coexistence with nature in very long term perspective. They uncovered the rapid homogenesation of plant communities in space after 5,800 before present, i.e., after arable agriculture was introduced into Central Europe. For more see
http://ecology.cts.cuni.cz.
Summary of bilateral results
All the beneficiaries were involved in all the processes of data collection, data analyses and writing of the papers. The main benefit of the beneficiaries was transfer of knowledge and informal agreement about future cooperation.Donor partnership achieved better insight into the history of rules and processes in nature in Czechia and Norway. The contrast between Norway and Czechia in terms of natural conditions, agriculture management and climate allowed better understanding to the human impact on the nature. The opportunity to analyse detailed and comparable data from different European regions. The contrast between histories of the regions sheds light on long term impact of human activities and climate variation on biodiversity functioning during the Holocene (since the last Ice-Age). The partnership during the project achieved strengthening of bilateral relations. Apart from the impact on society in terms of economic (and other welfare, as biodiversity value is coherently a part of our welfare), our project helped to gender equality issue and involve 8 students into the research, which is the best way of education ever. 3 of the students successfully finished their degree during the project. The project helped to employ 14 women in total, 2 of them after maternity leave as defined by the officials. However, 5 of the women (scientists) with children under fifteen got the opportunity of part time contract in science.