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Conservation Potential of Abandoned Military Areas Matches That of Established Reserves: Plants and Butterflies in the Czech Republic

Military training generates frequent and irregular disturbance followed by succession, resulting in fine-scaled mosaics of ecological conditions in military training areas (MTAs). The awareness that MTAs may represent important biodiversity sanctuaries is increasing recently. Concurrently, changes i...

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Autores principales: Cizek, Oldrich, Vrba, Pavel, Benes, Jiri, Hrazsky, Zaboj, Koptik, Jiri, Kucera, Tomas, Marhoul, Pavel, Zamecnik, Jaroslav, Konvicka, Martin
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3541396/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23326388
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053124
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author Cizek, Oldrich
Vrba, Pavel
Benes, Jiri
Hrazsky, Zaboj
Koptik, Jiri
Kucera, Tomas
Marhoul, Pavel
Zamecnik, Jaroslav
Konvicka, Martin
author_facet Cizek, Oldrich
Vrba, Pavel
Benes, Jiri
Hrazsky, Zaboj
Koptik, Jiri
Kucera, Tomas
Marhoul, Pavel
Zamecnik, Jaroslav
Konvicka, Martin
author_sort Cizek, Oldrich
collection PubMed
description Military training generates frequent and irregular disturbance followed by succession, resulting in fine-scaled mosaics of ecological conditions in military training areas (MTAs). The awareness that MTAs may represent important biodiversity sanctuaries is increasing recently. Concurrently, changes in military doctrine are leading to abandonment of many MTAs, which are being brought under civilian administration and opened for development. We surveyed vascular plants in 43 and butterflies in 41 MTAs in the Czech Republic and compared the records with plants and butterfly records from 301 and 125 nature reserves, respectively. After controlling for effects of area, geography, and climate, we found that plant species richness was equal in the two land use categories; butterfly richness was higher in MTAs; reserves hosted more endangered plants and more endangered butterflies. Ordination analyses, again controlled for potential nuisance effects, showed that MTAs and reserves differed also in species composition. While specialist species of nationally rarest habitat types inclined towards the reserves, MTAs hosted a high representation of endangered species depending on either disturbed ground, or successionaly transient conditions. These patterns reflect the history of the national nature reserves network, and the disturbance-succession dynamics within MTAs. The conservation value of formerly army-used lands is increasingly threatened by abandonment, and conservationists should support either alternative uses mimicking army activities, or sustainable management regimes.
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spelling pubmed-35413962013-01-16 Conservation Potential of Abandoned Military Areas Matches That of Established Reserves: Plants and Butterflies in the Czech Republic Cizek, Oldrich Vrba, Pavel Benes, Jiri Hrazsky, Zaboj Koptik, Jiri Kucera, Tomas Marhoul, Pavel Zamecnik, Jaroslav Konvicka, Martin PLoS One Research Article Military training generates frequent and irregular disturbance followed by succession, resulting in fine-scaled mosaics of ecological conditions in military training areas (MTAs). The awareness that MTAs may represent important biodiversity sanctuaries is increasing recently. Concurrently, changes in military doctrine are leading to abandonment of many MTAs, which are being brought under civilian administration and opened for development. We surveyed vascular plants in 43 and butterflies in 41 MTAs in the Czech Republic and compared the records with plants and butterfly records from 301 and 125 nature reserves, respectively. After controlling for effects of area, geography, and climate, we found that plant species richness was equal in the two land use categories; butterfly richness was higher in MTAs; reserves hosted more endangered plants and more endangered butterflies. Ordination analyses, again controlled for potential nuisance effects, showed that MTAs and reserves differed also in species composition. While specialist species of nationally rarest habitat types inclined towards the reserves, MTAs hosted a high representation of endangered species depending on either disturbed ground, or successionaly transient conditions. These patterns reflect the history of the national nature reserves network, and the disturbance-succession dynamics within MTAs. The conservation value of formerly army-used lands is increasingly threatened by abandonment, and conservationists should support either alternative uses mimicking army activities, or sustainable management regimes. Public Library of Science 2013-01-09 /pmc/articles/PMC3541396/ /pubmed/23326388 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053124 Text en © 2013 Cizek et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Cizek, Oldrich
Vrba, Pavel
Benes, Jiri
Hrazsky, Zaboj
Koptik, Jiri
Kucera, Tomas
Marhoul, Pavel
Zamecnik, Jaroslav
Konvicka, Martin
Conservation Potential of Abandoned Military Areas Matches That of Established Reserves: Plants and Butterflies in the Czech Republic
title Conservation Potential of Abandoned Military Areas Matches That of Established Reserves: Plants and Butterflies in the Czech Republic
title_full Conservation Potential of Abandoned Military Areas Matches That of Established Reserves: Plants and Butterflies in the Czech Republic
title_fullStr Conservation Potential of Abandoned Military Areas Matches That of Established Reserves: Plants and Butterflies in the Czech Republic
title_full_unstemmed Conservation Potential of Abandoned Military Areas Matches That of Established Reserves: Plants and Butterflies in the Czech Republic
title_short Conservation Potential of Abandoned Military Areas Matches That of Established Reserves: Plants and Butterflies in the Czech Republic
title_sort conservation potential of abandoned military areas matches that of established reserves: plants and butterflies in the czech republic
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3541396/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23326388
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0053124
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