The Czech Republic is located in the Central Europe. It is an inland state with an area of 78,870 km². It is bordered by Germany to the west (border length 810 km), Poland to the north (762 km), Slovakia to the east (252 km) and Austria to the south (466 km). Administratively, it is divided into 14 self-governing territorial units - regions, one of the regions is the capital city of Prague.
The temperate climate in the Czech Republic is transitional between oceanic and continental. Due to the small area, the differences between east and west and between north and south are small. The character of the weather and climate is much more influenced especially by the altitude. A typical feature of the climate is the regular alternation of four seasons.
There are four national parks in the Czech Republic (Krkonoše National Park, Šumava National Park, Podyjí National Park and Bohemian Switzerland National Park). The Ministry of the Environment is preparing a proclamation of the Křivoklátsko National Park. There are also 26 protected landscape areas (PLAs), 110 national nature reserves, 125 national nature monuments and hundreds of other nature reserves and nature monuments in the Czech Republic.
Species
Biological invasions are one of the most important components of the current global change and a serious threat to the conservation of biodiversity and to the functioning of ecosystems, apart from the socio-economic problems they involve. The rapid detection of potentially invasive species in the region is of great importance in order to prevent major infestations and reduce the potential impacts they may cause. The aim of this project is to collect information on the Distribution of a group of alien species in the Czech Republic.
Full assessment (in Czech)How to participate
Joining the BioBlitz on non-native species in the Czech Republic is very easy! Just follow these three steps:
1. Download the iNaturalist app (for android or iOS) to your smartphone or tablet, access the web iNaturalist.org through your computer, and create an account.
2. You can join the Biosmršť 2023 project in iNaturalist to keep track of the observations made by you and by other volunteers involved.
3. During the weekend from May 26th to 28th, record all your observations using the inaturalist app though photographs of the non-native species in the Czech Republic that you detect.
The project will be open beyond this weekend, so whenever you find one of these non-native species, take the opportunity to continue documenting it in the Biosmršť 2023 project at iNaturalist. More detailed instructions on how to use iNaturalist for the IAS Bioblitz - Czech Republic project on invasive species in the Czech Republic 2023 are provided as a supporting pdf (in czech).
If you do not want to use iNaturalist app (for any reason), but still would like to get involved, you can install BioLog app. There are also apps for specific taxa, for crayfish you can use app Crayfish in the Czech Republic and for egyptian goose the app Avif.
Organisers
Main organisers are scientists from Crop Research Institute and from Institute of Botany of the Czech Academy of Sciences.
The event is supported by some scientific societies, such as the Czech Ornithological Society, the Czech Entomological Society, the Czech Society for Ecology and the Czech Botanical Society.
The event will be also supported by Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic and National Museum Prague.
Contact
Jiří Skuhrovec,
jirislavskuhrovec@gmail.com
Pavel Pipek,
pavel.pipek@ibot.cas.cz
Kateřina Štajerová,
katerina.stajerova@ibot.cas.cz
