European larch (Larix decidua Mill.) is a common deciduous conifer tree species naturally occurring in the Alps and in scattered populations in Central-Eastern Europe, including the Jeseníky region (NE Czechia). It is commonly planted in forests and especially some of its traditionally described regional types are highly valued in forestry for outstanding form and wood properties. Here we present the results of the first research to date focused on the genetic structure of a larger number of larch populations from the Jeseníky region using analysis of nuclear DNA microsatellite markers in the context of the variability throughout the whole range of the species. The region is traditionally considered to be a part of the native distribution range of larch and a specific local type of larch, called ‘Sudety’ or ‘Jeseníky’ type, has been described there. We confirm a common presence of the ‘Sudety’ type in a form of a genetic lineage closely related to larch populations from northern Carpathians and lowlands of Poland. However, we found notable levels of artificial admixture of genetic material from the Alps in many of the populations, including the populations specifically protected to preserve the local type of larch. The admixture is either low or absent in the core protected populations but in the periphery, including some of the protected areas, and commonly managed forests, the Alpine genotypes can reach up to 50

This project focuses on the subsistence strategies of Early Neolithic communities that inhabited the upland region of South Bohemia. Its results reveal a distinctive trajectory for this peripheral area that was colonised significantly later, brought incoming farmers into close contact with hunter-gatherers and made them adapt their conservative farming practices.

Using pollen analysis, phytolith analysis and radiocarbon dating of newly discovered sedimentary archives, here we prove the native status of European larch (Larix decidua Mill.) in two sandstone rocky areas of north Bohemia (Czech Republic). At the end of the Last Ice Age and at the beginning of the Holocene, European larch was relatively common in Central Europe. In most critical period of the Middle Holocene, it demonstrably retreated to exposed rocky habitats, but did not become completely extinct. In the form of relict populations, it survived locally until the modern era, when non-native larch types were artificially introduced into managed forest stands. Our findings call for a radical rethinking of the approach to larch by both foresters and nature conservation authorities. In the future, it is primarily necessary to search for and protect the remnants of its original gene pool.

The shift towards cultivating domesticated crops was a pivotal development in ecological, economic, and human behavioural systems. As agriculture expanded beyond its origins, it faced diverse environments, often unsuitable for the originally cultivated domesticates. Farmers in Central Europe had to adjust and transform their farming systems, typically cultivating only five domesticated crop species. Here, we present new archaeobotanical data comprising 7955 determined charred remains and 22 radiocarbon dates from South Bohemia. This region, with higher altitudes, colder climates, and less fertile soils, lies on the periphery of Early Neolithic settlement. Our results reveal increased crop diversity as a form of adaptation to the harsher environment that bolstered resilience against crop failure. The earliest 14C-based evidence of deliberate cultivation of barley and Timopheev's wheat in the region also provides new insights into the interplay between crop diffusion, landscapes, and food choices in the Neolithic Central Europe.

Summary Biodiversity world‐wide has been under increasing anthropogenic pressure in the past century. The long‐term response of biotic communities has been tackled primarily by focusing on species richness, community composition and functionality. Equally important are shifts between entire communities and habitat types, which remain an unexplored level of biodiversity change. We have resurveyed > 2000 vegetation plots in temperate forests in central Europe to capture changes over an average of five decades. The plots were assigned to eight broad forest habitat types using an algorithmic classification system. We analysed transitions between the habitat types and interpreted the trend in terms of changes in environmental conditions. We identified a directional shift along the combined gradients of canopy openness and soil nutrients. Nutrient‐poor open‐canopy forest habitats have declined strongly in favour of fertile closed‐canopy habitats. However, the shift was not uniform across the whole gradients. We conclude that the shifts in habitat types represent a century‐long successional trend with significant consequences for forest biodiversity. Open forest habitats should be urgently targeted for plant diversity restoration through the implementation of active management. The approach presented here can be applied to other habitat types and at different spatio‐temporal scales.

Using pollen analysis, phytolith analysis and radiocarbon dating of newly discovered sedimentary archives, here we prove the native status of European larch (Larix decidua Mill.) in two sandstone rocky areas of north Bohemia (Czech Republic). At the end of the Last Ice Age and at the beginning of the Holocene, European larch was relatively common in Central Europe. In most critical period of the Middle Holocene, it demonstrably retreated to exposed rocky habitats, but did not become completely extinct. In the form of relict populations, it survived locally until the modern era, when non-native larch types were artificially introduced into managed forest stands. Our findings call for a radical rethinking of the approach to larch by both foresters and nature conservation authorities. In the future, it is primarily necessary to search for and protect the remnants of its original gene pool.

The landscape of central Europe is thought to have been dominated by steppe, forest-steppe, or tundra during the Last Glacial. This classical view is mostly based on the pollen records. However, as the pollen production and taphonomy during the cold periods are largely unknown, modern analogies of past landscapes need to be involved to provide more plausible vegetation reconstructions. Here we performed pollen analyses of recent samples from small lakes in Yakutia, eastern Siberia, a cold region where larch taiga forest is maintained by water from cyclically melting permafrost. We compared the pollen samples using multivariate (PCA) and analogue matching techniques with 830 fossil pollen samples from central Europe dated to MIS3–MIS1 (ca 35,000–11,700 cal BP). We have shown that the non-arboreal pollen proportion is around 50

Pronounced climatic warming associated with the Late Weichselian Pleniglacial‐to‐Lateglacial transition caused considerable environmental changes throughout the former periglacial zones (in Europe ~53°–46°N). During permafrost degradation and subsequent ground subsidence (i.e. thermokarst processes), the landscape changed rapidly. In this study we investigated a flat mid‐altitude area in south Bohemia, Czech Republic, lying close to the southern limit of the Weichselian permafrost. We discovered palaeo‐lake basins with sedimentary infillings up to 11 m in depth. According to radiocarbon and palynostratigraphical dating, these basins were formed at the onset of the Late Pleniglacial‐to‐Lateglacial transition, whereas the smaller depressions were formed later. We suggest that the basins resulted from thermal and fluvio‐thermal erosion of the former permafrost and represent remnants of discontinuous gullies and possibly collapsed frost mounds (pingo/lithalsa scars). The formation of this a fossil thermokarst landscape was climatically driven and multiple phased, with the major phase during the climatic warming and wetting at the onset of GI ‐1e (Bølling) and the minor phase during GI ‐1c (Allerød). This study enhances knowledge of the palaeogeography of the former European periglacial zone by showing that Late Pleistocene thermokarst activity could have had a significant impact on the evolution of the landscape of at least some regions of central Europe along the southern limit of the continuous permafrost zone. The research also points to a similar history for the physical transformation of the landscape of the former European periglacial zone and current thermokarst landscapes and could be a valuable source of information with respect to the future transformation of the Arctic under conditions of ongoing global warming.

QuestionsHow did plant species richness and spatial heterogeneity of the vegetation change across sub-montane forests over the past 50years? Did the vegetation changes reflect eutrophication, acidification and management changes, which the area underwent during the second half of the 20th century? LocationOrdinary managed forests sampled across 2500 km(2) of a typical Central European sub-montane landscape in the southern part of the Czech Republic. MethodsWe resampled 156 quasi-permanent plots sampled in the 1950s-1970s and covering the whole range of forest vegetation in the region. We compared understorey plant species richness and community composition between the surveys and tested for temporal changes in the spatial heterogeneity (-diversity) of vegetation. ResultsSpecies richness and dissimilarity in species composition among plots decreased significantly between the surveys. The vegetation of the plots also changed significantly, but there were no clear directional changes across all plots. The vegetation homogenization was driven by local extinctions of specialist species, especially competitively weak species adapted to nutrient-poor conditions. Few generalist species expanded between the surveys. ConclusionsWe found evidence of taxonomic homogenization of forest understoreys across a large sub-montane region. This vegetation homogenization was probably driven by complex landscape changes that took place in the last century. Varied traditional management regimes were replaced with largely uniform management, and the once spatially diverse landscape mosaic has become simpler. The resulting transition to species-poor and less variable vegetation was probably further accelerated by environmental eutrophication. Our results thus complement previous forest herb layer resurveys, which focused mostly on lowland forests and small nature reserves, and suggest that landscape-scale taxonomic homogenization is occurring across Central European forests.

Aim Revisits of non-permanent, relocatable plots first surveyed several decades ago offer a direct way to observe vegetation change and form a unique and increasingly used source of information for global change research. Despite the important insights that can be obtained from resurveying these quasi-permanent vegetation plots, their use is prone to both observer and relocation errors. Studying the combined effects of both error types is important since they will play out together in practice and it is yet unknown to what extent observed vegetation changes are influenced by these errors. MethodsResultsWe designed a study that mimicked all steps in a resurvey study and that allowed determination of the magnitude of observer errors only vs the joint observer and relocation errors. Communities of vascular plants growing in the understorey of temperate forests were selected as study system. Ten regions in Europe were covered to explore generality across contexts and 50 observers were involved, which deliberately differed in their experience in making vegetation records. The mean geographic distance between plots in the observer+relocation error data set was 24m. The mean relative difference in species richness in the observer error and the observer+relocation data set was 15% and 21%, respectively. The mean pseudo-turnover between the five records at a quasi-permanent plot location was on average 0.21 and 0.35 for the observer error and observer+relocation error data sets, respectively. More detailed analyses of the compositional variation showed that the nestedness and turnover components were of equal importance in the observer data set, whereas turnover was much more important than nestedness in the observer+relocation data set. Interestingly, the differences between the observer and the observer+relocation data sets largely disappeared when looking at temporal change: both the changes in species richness and species composition over time were very similar in these data sets. ConclusionsOur results demonstrate that observer and relocation errors are non-negligible when resurveying quasi-permanent plots. A careful interpretation of the results of resurvey studies is warranted, especially when changes are assessed based on a low number of plots. We conclude by listing measures that should be taken to maximally increase the precision and the strength of the inferences drawn from vegetation resurveys.

Sediments from three paleolakes and two paleosol horizons in south Bohemia, Czech Republic, provide evidence of climate change and landscape evolution in central-eastern Europe on millennial to centennial timescales over the Late Glacial (~16–11.5ky). Based on a combination of geochemical, sedimentological and geophysical proxy indicators, along with the pollen record and soil micromorphology, we propose a relationship between vegetation cover, soil development, and erosional processes. Four major and two minor environmental stages, identified in all investigated paleo-lakes, were broadly correlated with the Late Glacial climatostratigraphy. Short-term (decadal to centennial) climatic deteriorations between the Bølling and Allerød, and within the Allerød, have been correlated with the Older Dryas and the Intra-Allerød Cold Period (IACP) respectively. B horizons of two (gleyic) podzols discovered under aeolian sand dunes in the lake catchments were dated to the Allerød interstadial and were parallelized with Usselo soils – pedostratigraphical marker horizons of west- and northern-central Europe. The upper parts of these soils have signs of colluvial processes. According to the radiocarbon dating, the erosion occurred at 13,155±150cal. yr BP and can be associated with the IACP event, which is marked by a significant input of allogenic material into the lake basins. We attribute the significant increase in the iron and consequent phosphorus content in the lake sediments during the Allerød to the podzolization that occurred with the humid interstadial conditions.