European wild rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus) is a widely distributed species with a multiple role in both environmental sustainability and local economy. In the current study we examine the body condition of the species in relation to habitat type, age, sex and seasonality on the island of Lemnos. Body condition was assessed based on a visual estimation of the amount of abdominal fat. A high intra-annual variation in the body condition of the species has been observed, which is further affected by sex and age. The species appears to conserve and maintain high levels of energy reserves for two main reasons. The first is to ensure a better reproductive success,
as expressed by the relatively high amount of stored fat reserves at the onset of breeding season, and their depletion during it. The second
is to ensure survival during periods where the shortage of food creates a rather hostile environment, as expressed by the increased level of reserves during summer and their dramatic decrease from late summer until autumn. The temporal fluctuation in energy reserves differs between male and female rabbits, reflecting their temporally different energy demands. Further, differences in body conditions were observed between juvenile and adult individuals, reflecting their different needs in terms of body growth and maintenance. Our results could offer important insights for the development of a time specific management plan and measures to ensure either the control of the population or its conservation.
Roadside verges in densely populated areas are often a significant addition to the total semi-natural area and as such may contribute to the conservation of biodiversity. Furthermore, they can enhance the ecological cohesion of a region, especially when the existing nature reserves are small and/or highly fragmented. We investigated the occurrence of ground beetles and spiders in six highway verges with grey hair-grass vegetation in the Veluwe region, The Netherlands. Total species number in the verges was similar to the values found in nearby nature reserves with comparable vegetation, but the ground beetles tended to be more abundant in the reserves. Many stenotopic species were present in the verges, confirming the significant conservation value of this habitat. However, compared with the nature reserves, there were fewer species of stenotopic ground beetles and the stenotopic spiders were less abundant in the verges. From our knowledge of the biology and ecology of the species captured it seems likely that this is attributable to differences in "habitat quality". In the verges, species preferring bare sand are scarcer, and the weighted mean body length of ground beetles is shorter than in nature reserves. This suggests that the sward in the road verges is too dense and the suitable vegetation too patchy to sustain some of the stenotopic species. Habitat analyses support this contention: Compared with the nature reserves, the verges had proportionally less bare sand, more herb and tree cover and the vegetation patches were smaller. The strategy suggested to promote stenotopic species entails removing encroaching trees and shrubs from the verges in order to expand the nutrient-poor zone and (re-)create pioneer conditions. Subsequent management should aim at further improving the road verges as extensions of nutrient-poor habitat.
As urbanisation is set to continue, understanding the impact on wildlife becomes increasingly important if we are to be able to conserve biodiversity. As an excellent group of bioindicators, invertebrates can allow us to understand some of the forces in urban areas which impact upon biodiversity and wildlife populations. This paper discusses some of the trends in the abundance, diversity and richness of invertebrates related to urbanisation and the specific urban environmental and traffic factors which may be at play., Elizabeth L. Jones, Simon R. Leather., and Obsahuje seznam literatury
a1_Studie zkoumá obnovu manažerské vědy v Československu po roce 1956 a její činnost v rámci reformní politiky šedesátých let. Druhá část článku pak sleduje proměny teorie řízení po roce 1968 a zaměřuje se na zavádění sociálního plánování a jeho vztah k podnikovému řízení. Teorie řízení je zde představena jako expertní činnost, která ovlivňovala dobové představy o organizaci hospodářského života, od vytváření složitých systémů plánování a řízení po snahu ustavit profesi socialistického manažera. Záměrem autora je popsat šíři této expertní činnosti a současně analyzovat její politické funkce v různých etapách vývoje státního socialismu. Pokus o vytvoření manažerské vědy odpovídající zvláštnostem socialistického hospodářství podle něj vedl k rozdílným představám o metodách a cílech ekonomického řízení, včetně různého pojetí socialistického manažerství., a2_Reformní politika šedesátých let umožnila rozsáhlou recepci západní manažerské vědy, vybudování institucionální základny a vytvoření expertní kultury, která čerpala ze značně rozdílných odborných perspektiv od psychologie po systémové inženýrství. Reformní manažerská věda propagovala socialistické podnikatelství, jehož uskutečnění vyžadovalo decentralizaci hospodářství a vytvoření ekonomického systému založeného na interakci mezi plánem a trhem. „Konsolidovaná“ manažerská věda sedmdesátých let pak reagovala na odklon od tržního socialismu a návrat k centrálnímu plánování vytvořením odlišného pojetí socialistického manažerství. Úkolem manažera bylo zabezpečit hospodářskou a organizační efektivitu srovnatelnou s výkonem kapitalistické firmy a současně naplňovat sociálně-politické strategie socialistického režimu prostřednictvím sociálního plánování., The study examines the revivalof the management science in Czechoslovakia after 1956 and its activities in the context of political reforms of the 1968. The second part of the article monitors changes of the theory of management since 1968, focusing on the introduction of social planning and its relation to corporate management. The theory of management is presented as an expert activity which was influencing then existing concepts and ideas of the organization of economic life, form the development of complex planning and management systems to efforts aimed at establishing the profession of a socialist manager. The author´s goal is to describe the scope of the expert activity referred to above and also to analyze its politicial functions in different stages of the development of state socialism. He claims the attempt to create a management science consistent with specific feature of socialist economy led to different concepts and perceptions of methods and objectives of economic management, including different concepts of socialist managership. The reform policy of the 1960s permitted a vast receptions of Western management science, development of an institutional base, and creation of an expert culture drawing from a number of different professional disciplines, from psychology to system engineering. The reform managrement science was promoting socialist entrepreneurship: the idea requiered economic decentralization and the creation of a system based on an interaction between the plan and the market. The "consolidated" management science of the 1970s responded to a departure from the market socialism and a return to a central planning system by producing a different concept of socialist managership. The manager´s mission was to ensure a level of economic and organizational efficiency comparable to that of a capitalist enterprise and, at the same time, implement socio-political strategies of the socialist regime through social planning., Vítězslav Sommer., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy
Evidence from the only woodland study in the U.K. of the non-native edible dormouse shows (using nest boxes inspected monthly), that whilst some or much breeding occurs in most years, non-breeding years also occur. This is understood to relate to the number of tree species flowering in spring and the amount of flower production. Morris & Morris (2010) used a small sample to show that some adult animals do not appear in the nest box inspection records during the non-breeding years, but are present during the next breeding year. We have subsequently refined and increased the database, collating information on a sample of 222 glis (136 female, 86 male) known to be alive for between 5 and 13 years during a continuous study period of 18 years. The number of old animals (living to at least five years) recorded in nest boxes is significantly different between years of breeding and non-breeding with up to 90 % absent. There is no evidence that they move elsewhere in the isolated wood. Both males and females displayed this trait. The paper discusses alternative explanatory options interpreted from this. The applied science impact is that if 18 month hibernation is proven the time and cost implications for population control planning are severe. Future research is aimed at demonstrating the reality.
Předkládaný článek se zaměřuje na osobnostní vlastnosti a na výkonovou motivaci úspěšných manažerů. Ověřujeme, jestli existují významné rozdíly v osobnostní struktuře a výkonové motivaci mezi manažery v podnikatelském sektoru a v neziskových organizacích.
Používáme testovou baterii, která se skládá ze dvou testů - NEO pětifaktorový osobnostní inventář a LMI – motivace k výkonu.
Výzkumný soubor tvoří 134 manažerů střední a vrcholové úrovně, 71 manažerů pochází z prostředí podnikatelského sektoru, 63 manažerů působí v nestátních neziskových organizacích.
Z výsledků konstatujeme, že mezi oběma skupinami manažerů jsou statisticky významné rozdíly ve všech sledovaných škálách pro osobnostní charakteristiky, kromě škály neuroticismu. V charakteristikách výkonové motivace výsledky studie rovněž prokázaly statisticky významné rozdíly mezi oběma skupinami manažerů ve všech sledovaných škálách pro motivaci k výkonu, kromě škály kompenzační úsilí. Uzavíráme, že manažeři neziskových organizací a manažeři podnikatelského prostředí se liší jak v osobnostních charakteristikách, tak také ve struktuře výkonové motivace. and Background: Our contribution focuses on leadership effectiveness in organisations from manager’s point of view. We concentrate on personality traits and achievement motivation of successful managers. We try to verify if there is a significant difference in personality structure, achievement and work motivation between managers working in NGOs and managers working in business. Furthermore, we specify characteristic personality traits and the structure of achievement motivation for both groups – managers in business and managers in NGOs.
Methods: we used test battery of two standardizes psychometric tests: NEO Big Five Personality Inventory and Achievement Motivation Test (LMI).
Explorative sample: included 134 managers (middle level and top level) – 71 working in business, 63 working in NGOs.
Outcomes: In both measured characteristics – personality traits and achievement motivation – we found significant differences between the two groups of managers (except for neuroticism scale and compensatory effort scale). We can conclude that there are differences in personality structure and achievement motivation between managers working in NGOs and managers working in business.
Cílem studie je sledovat dovednost neverbální detekce pravdy a lži mezi policisty a studenty ekonomiky a managementu. Příslušníci Policie ČR (n=197) a studenti ekonomiky a managementu (n=161) hodnotili pravdivost výpovědí v 21 videoklipech z reálného vyšetřování trestných činů. Jejich hodnocení byla založená na pozorování neverbálního chování. Zvuková stopa ve videozáznamech byla modifikována, aby nebylo možné rozeznat konkrétní slova, ale aby zůstaly zachovány paraverbální charakteristiky řeči. Výsledky naznačují tendenci respondentů k tzv. lie bias při hodnocení výpovědí, tedy tendenci posuzovat výpovědi spíše jako lživé. Významnou roli hrály také stereotypy. Výpovědi podezřelých odlišné národnosti, nižšího věku nebo s výraznými vzhledovými rysy byly častěji označovány jako lživé. Výzkum může být přínosný pro výcvik profesionálů, kteří využívají techniky detekce lži při vyšetřování trestných činů, k identifikaci klamání při výběrových řízeních i v dalších oblastech. and The study looks at the ability to detect nonverbal deception among police officers and economics and management students in the Czech Republic. Respondents from police departments (n=197) and university students of human resources (n=161) completed a deception detection task and evaluated veracity of the statements of suspects in 21 videos from real crime investigations. Their evaluations were based on nonverbal behavior. Voices in the video clips were modified so that words were not recognizable, yet paraverbal voice characteristics were preserved. Results suggest respondents have a tendency to so-called lie bias, i.e. a tendency to evaluate the statements preferably as deceptive. In the evaluation of video clips, stereotypes also played a significant role. The statements of suspects of a different ethnicity, younger age or specific visual features were considered deceitful more often. Research might be beneficial for training professionals, who use techniques of deception detection in crime investigation, for identification of deception during job interviews or in other fields.
The food composition of the brown bear diet was studied on the basis of 215 excrement samples, which were collected in 2008-2010 in the area of the Eastern Carpathians (Poloniny National Park). The seasonal changes in food composition reflected the supply of the environment, which is nowadays influenced by human activities. This situation resulted in a stronger adaptation of bear to anthropogenic food sources of plant origin compared to historical data from the Carpathians. We identified diagnostic groups and food components consumed by bears in individual seasons of the evaluated period. In spring, crops provided by hunters were found to be
the diagnostic group; and corn, silage, rape, bark and wood were diagnostic components. In summer, invertebrates were the diagnostic group; and ants, cherries and grass were the diagnostic components. In autumn, fruit were the diagnostic group; and apples, pears, blackberries, plums and acorns were the diagnostic components. In winter, hard mast and crops provided by hunters were diagnostic groups; and beechnuts, sunflower, rape, wheat, corn and corn silage were diagnostic components. From the nutritional point of view, crops provided by hunters dominated in spring and summer, and hard mast dominated in autumn and winter.
The abandonment of less productive agricultural land and the intensification of agricultural land use are the main features of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that Croatia will enforce now as new member of the EU. Due to
demographic changes and the economic transition in Croatia resulting from
war in the 1990s, substantial tracts of agricultural land were abandoned. We investigated two habitat types in the protected floodplain landscape of Lonjsko polje in the continental part of the country: arable land and pastures.
Both habitats were maintained by agricultural management and suffered from partial abandonment. Land abandonment increased the susceptibility to encroachment by the invasive plant species Amorpha fruticosa. Data on bird communities were obtained during the breeding season in 2010 while there were high water levels in the floodplain. Data were collected from 63 points, and a total of 1447 individuals from 70 species were recorded during
the study. We found that the bird community structure was primarily related to the presence/abandonment of agricultural land use and the habitat type. Further, we detected that the bird community structure in the same habitat type differed by management intensity. Open habitat specialists were most influenced by land abandonment. However, the conservation value (according to the Species of European Conservation Concern value, SPEC) of grazed pastures and abandoned pastures did not differ significantly, in part because the overgrown pastures with high water levels were found to be suitable for Acrocephalus species. The shift in bird community structure between abandoned and managed arable lands were smaller than those
detected in the pastoral communities. Because land abandonment is a widespread phenomenon in Croatia, we emphasize the urgent need
for a nationwide monitoring program for farmland birds to register the resulting changes in farmland bird communities and to develop appropriate agri-environment measures to mitigate the process.