Habitat preferences of red deer in the Giant Mountains NP

The thesis deals with the evaluation of habitat preferences of the red deer in the Krkonoše National Park. In the context of Central Europe, the Krkonoše Mountains are an important locality in which many rare and protected ecosystems are located. The current management is trying to restore the species composition of the forest, which was abundant in the past and replaced by atypical spruce species. Red deer (Cervus elaphus), which lives in these forests, has no natural enemy in the Giant Mountains, so it is necessary to control the local population and perform selective management for the purpose of forest protection. For proper management planning it is important to know the life strategies of the red deer: the deer's preffered habitat, physical-geographical characteristics that affect its movement and spatio- temporal use of the area. This information can be obtained through GPS-telemetry collar monitoring. The monitoring campaign in the Giant Mountains was carried out between 2014 and 2018 and the resulting data are used in this work. Information on 71 individuals of red deer are processed and subjected to spatio-temporal analysis, which shows that deer behavior is influenced by both daily and annual cycles. Another aspect influencing its movement is the density and intensity of the use of..