The UN General Assembly has declared 2015 the International Year of Soils to raise awareness of the vital importance of soil, which is essential not only for food security and for cultivating plants for feed, fibre, fuel and medicinal products, but also for maintaining biodiversity as it hosts countless organisms. It plays a key role in storing and filtering water, in carbon and other nutrients cycling and performs other irreplaceable ecosystem functions. The Institute of Soil Biology of the CAS Biology Centre carries out biological research into many of those functions of soil in both natural and human–affected environments, including studies of the soil microstructure, soil organism communities and their dynamics and interactions and so on. Researchers at the Institute of Soil Biology focus, among other things, on the contribution of soil fungi to nitrous oxide emissions and on the production of methane. The latter is a potent greenhouse gas and a substantial part of atmospheric methane is produced by anaerobic microorganisms called Archaea found in the soil and in animal digestive tracts, while soil is also a significant methane sink. Research is also being concentrated on the characterization and risk assessment of antibiotic resistance-reservoirs in soil, which is connected with the massive use of antibiotics in the past five decades. Scientists examine ways of preventing the antibiotic resistance spreading in the environment through food chains as well as and on the role played by the soil microflora in those processes, as Doctor Dana Elhottová explains in the corresponding article. and Jana Olivová.
Podyjí National Park is one of the hotspots of fungal diversity in the Czech Republic (so far we know about 1400 species from this area). The main reasons for this fact (well-preserved natural habitats, habitat and geological diversity) are introduced and briefly discussed in the article. high fungal diversity is documented based on several examples of rare or endangered species, which are typical for some of the local habitats and characterize the range of ecological conditions in the studied area. and Jan Běťák.
Since 2011, a unique project studying the effect of artificial canopy opening (Small-size clearings) on biodiversity in lowland forests has been carried out in the Podyjí NP. The response of communities of butterflies, moths, epigeic, floricolous and saproxylic beetles, birds, reptiles, and vascular plants was observed for three years. The results showed a positive effect of early stages in forest succession not only for the majority of groups studied, but also for many threatened species, and also demonstrated the importance of open forest remnants for biodiversity. In protected forests at low and middle elevations, conservation management should attempt to maintain a mosaic of forest at different stages of succession. and Pavel Šebek a kolektiv autorů.
The moths belong to the best-studied groups of insects in the Podyjí NP. In total, 2250 species of butterflies and moths (Lepidoptera) have hitherto been recorded here. Many species are closely associated with rocky steppe and heeathland, the most valuable natural habitats in this terriotory. Concurrently, the Podyjí NP is located on the western distribution border of many eastern and southern species. On the other hand, a total of 13 species of butterflies and moths have now become extinct here. and Jan Šumpich, Jan Liška, Zdeněk Laštůvka.