The European landscape was shaped throughout the centuries by a large scale of disturbances, either natural or human-induced, which played a key role in shaping the whole ecosystem and development of wildlife biota. A plethora of recent studies suggests that transition from extensive to intensive agriculture or forestry during the past two centuries had a negative impact on the whole communities of organisms. To further understand the more complex relationship between organisms and the environment, there is a necessity to merge subjects of ecology and geography. This field is called landscape ecology and its main essence is the exploration of spatial patterns related to wildlife organisms.

The main proportion of our research aims focuses on spatial analyses in the landscape, which results in the change of components in the landscape cover and related changes in the overall landscape composition. Our work presents a spatial composition of maps characterizing possible changes in the landscape and prediction analyses of abundance or probability occurrence of the specific organism in the context of land use and land cover changes. Additionally, these data can be linked to research from other fields of science.

Related maps:
Veteran trees and saproxylic insects in the floodplains of lower Morava and Dyje rivers
(Czech or English).

Pollarded willows in South Moravian region (Czech).

Jan Miklín, Gwendoline Percel, Pavel Šebek

Past levels of canopy closure affect the occurrence of veteran trees and flagship saproxylic beetles. Miklín et al. 2018, Diversity and Distributions.

Confluence of the Morava and Dyje Rivers: A century of landscape changes in maps. Miklín and Hradecký 2016, Journal of Maps.

Změny krajinného krytu na území národního parku Podyjí mezi lety 1938 a 2014 [Land cover changes in the territory of Podyjí National park between 1938 and 2014]. Miklín et al. 2016, Thayensia.