Checklist of Champion Trees in The Czech Republic

Abstract

An increasing number of people all around the world have become interested in remarkable and magnificent trees in recent years. Accessible databases of champion trees are available. Unfortunately, the Czech Republic does not have a single database of remarkable or champion trees. We have old tradition to find and describe an old and monumental trees in our country. In 1899 the first book was issued about it. Many of the biggest specimens are already registered in the Monumental Trees database, which is run by the Nature Conservation Agency of the Czech Republic, registered a total of 25,598 memorable trees in 2017. Not all remarkable or champion trees are designated as memorable. Due too we present the known data on champion trees in an independent checklist. There are shown 116 species of trees with their girth and other information as height, GPS coordinate etc. from various sources. This checklist is a basis for a future one national database. When comparing the champion trees of the Czech Republic with the databases of other European states, particularly that of Monumental Trees, it emerges that we are not far from coming first. The Czech champion tree, Vejda's Lime Tree in Pastviny (Tilia platyphyllos Scop.) measured 1,305 cm at girth in 2015. We would like to prepare one integrated Czech database of remarkable trees and champion trees by help of the Professor August Bayer Foundation as soon as possible.

Forest Management Under Megadrought: Urgent Needs at Finer Scale and Higher Intensity

“…Megadrought, then, by necessity may require prioritizing selected stands for finer-scale, high-intensity management (Figure 1), similar in scale to restoration islands (Hulvey et al, 2017). Prioritization of such stands for high-intensity management will likely need to be made on a case-by-case basis, but criteria that could aid in such prioritization include: (i) protecting existing refugia (McDowell et al, 2019); (ii) protecting large old trees due to their disproportionate influence on ecosystems and ecosystem services (Boylan, 2010;Úradníček et al, 2017;Enquist et al, 2020), (iii) protecting culturally important trees and groves (Daniel et al, 2016), including iconic trees and groves in protected areas such as national parks (Grant et al, 2013); (iv) protecting groves that provide key ecosystem services, especially for those practicing subsistence living (Sutherland et al, 2016); (v) protecting genetically distinct and perhaps more climatically resistant populations (Polle et al, 2019), or endangered evolutionarily important species (e.g., Wollemi pine [Wollemia nobilis] in Australia; Woodford, 2012); (vi) protecting groves that form a key part of corridors for fauna and flora (Rosot et al, 2018); and (vii) protecting isolated patches that might be important in reducing seed dispersal distances for revegetation post-disturbance (Shive et al, 2018).…”

Retention Forestry Supports Bird Diversity in Managed, Temperate Hardwood Floodplain Forests

“…ILOTs retained on cuts (study plots 4-6 in this study) ensure that managed hardwood forests contribute to biodiversity conservation [39]. The importance of individual legacy oak trees for bird diversity in the hardwood forests of Litovelske Pomoravi can be probably explained by considering the extreme size and age of its ILOTs in accordance with study [40].…”

Tracing origin and history of Virgin and Child in Majesty, the oldest wooden polychrome statuette in the Czech Republic

“…Linden wood was available in most of Europe. Only the large‐leaved linden ( Tilia platyphyllos ), which is absent in northern Europe, has a narrower geographical definition (Úradníček, 2004), but species identification has not been carried out on the artworks.…”