Bird conservation status along a successional gradient in abandoned military areas

Populations of open habitat bird species has significantly decreased in the Czech Republic during the last decades due to a number of negative factors, such as urbanization and intensification of agriculture. Due to the deterioration of the quality of these biotopes, a number of bird species (not only those of conservation importance) were forced to look for remaining fragments of favorable habitats, which are, for example, abandoned military training areas. The attractiveness of these territories lies primarily in their former closure for military purposes, which has protected these areas against these negative factors. In addition, army's activities created a heterogeneous landscape characterized by a mosaic of biotopes in different stages of vegetation succession - from bare ground, through grasslands, sparse scrubland, dense scrubland to the forest. However, the significance of abandoned military training areas for birds requires deeper investigation. The main goal of this thesis was to describe conservation importance of bird communities in individual biotopes along the successional gradient, for which a survey of 42 abandoned military training areas was used. The results of my work show that the most declining, endangered and protected species of birds sought out early successional habitats..