Introduction
The working group is an informal body connecting people interested in restoration ecology, especially in the topic of how to use spontaneous vegetation dynamics and related processes in the ecological restoration of human-disturbed habitats. The habitats include especially various post-mining sites, such as dumps from coal mining, disused sand and gravel pits, extracted peatlands, limestones, sites disturbed by building activities, abandoned fields, and disturbed forests. Particular attention is devoted to restoration of degraded secondary grasslands. We try to compare successional seres across habitats, conducting investigations at broader geographical scales. Emphasis is placed on the role of landscape context (macroclimate, regional species pool), besides studying local factors which drive succession.
Processes such as soil formation, nutrients dynamics, soil microbial activity and herbivory are also taken into account, because vegetation cannot be studied without relationship to other ecosystem components.
Though harbored at the Department of Botany, the group consists of scientists and students not only from that Department, but also from other departments of the Faculty and Institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. It is open to other colleagues.
Some members conduct activities under the Society for Ecological Restoration – International and under the European branch of the Society.
Besides research and teaching, the group aims to disseminate the ideas of restoration ecology to the public, through articles published in local journals and newspapers, consultancy and organization of local seminars.