Population and labour force projections for 27 European countries, 2002-052: impact of international migration on population ageing

Population and labour force projections are made for 27 selected European countries for 2002-052, focussing on the impact of international migration on population and labour force dynamics. Starting from single scenarios for fertility, mortality and economic activity, three sets of assumptions are explored regarding migration flows, taking into account probable policy developments in Europe following the enlargement of the EU. In addition to age structures, various support ratio indicators are analysed. The results indicate that plausible immigration cannot offset the negative effects of population and labour force ageing.     

War-related Deaths in the 1992–1995 Armed Conflicts in Bosnia and Herzegovina: A Critique of Previous Estimates and Recent Results

In this article, we provide a critique of previous estimates of war-related deaths from Bosnia and Herzegovina and propose an analytical framework and a new estimate of such deaths. Our assessment is concentrated on civilian victims, whose death (or disappearance) can in a straightforward manner be linked with war operation. The estimate is based on carefully selected sources analysed jointly at the level of individual records, allowing for identity verification of victims, elimination of duplicates within the sources and exclusion of records overlapping between the sources. Although we can argue that our estimate is much better founded than any other estimate ever obtained, it is still incomplete and should be seen as work in progress.     

Renaissance of a rural artifact in a city with a million people: biodiversity responses to an agro-forestry restoration in a large urban traditional fruit orchard

The rural landscapes surrounding large cities are rapidly becoming incorporated into the urban environment. The most conspicuous changes involve green spaces, such as former agro-forestry systems like fruit orchards. In this paper, we assess the influence on biodiversity of restoring a large urban traditional fruit orchard as reflected by six selected taxa: plants, lichens, butterflies, beetles, orthopteroids and birds. The study was performed in Prague, which is the capital city of the Czech Republic and has more than a million inhabitants. We studied the effect of orchard renewal in 45 patches (15 for birds and 30 for other taxa). The majority of taxa responded positively to the restoration. The restoration had a significant positive effect on the species richness of lichens, butterflies and beetles. All taxa showed significantly altered species compositions, and the number of red-listed species increased. Orchards have a high potential for multi-functional use. Orchards are productive agro-forestry systems and host numerous possible human activities. Therefore, orchard restoration also has a social aspect. Moreover, our research in this artificial ecosystem revealed that its restoration increased the biodiversity and conservation potential of the associated areas.

     

Suitability of biodiversity-area and biodiversity-perimeter relationships in ecology: a case study of urban ecosystems

Urban areas are probably the most fragmented environments with respect to the presence of semi-natural habitats and shape of these habitats may be significantly affected by urbanization. Patch perimeter in landscape or habitat studies is much less popular to study than patch area. The studied sites were situated in the industrial city of Pardubice, which is one of the ten largest cities in the Czech Republic with nearly 100,000 inhabitants. In total, 40 grasslands were studied within a circular area of 314 km². Butterflies and beetles with diurnal activity were studied during timed survey walks. A Simultaneous autoregressive model was used for test of the effect of biodiversity-area and biodiversity-perimeter relationships and for exclusion of potential bias caused by spatial autocorrelation. The models including patch perimeter performed better than those using patch area in explaining species richness, abundance and diversity of investigated organisms and were less influenced by spatial autocorrelation. The main conclusion and recommendation of the present study is that researchers should pay more attention to the possible influence of the patch perimeter as a potential predictor or co-predictor for landscape and habitat studies – especially in urban areas, where the negative effects of fragmentation might be much higher than in rural or more natural landscapes. Performing preliminary tests on comparisons between area and perimeter is highly recommended.     

Daily street life in the inner city of Prague under transformation: the visual experience of socio-spatial differentiation and temporal rhythms

The paper is concerned with the everyday manifestation of increasing social, lifestyle and cultural diversity in the transforming inner city of Prague. The Smíchov neighbourhood and particularly its central hub, the Anděl junction, were chosen as the focus of the study. The regeneration dynamics during the post-socialist transformation make this place particularly interesting for an inquiry into the interplay of the social and physical environment, into the interactions of changing urban landscapes and people's everyday practices. Particular attention is paid to the character of ordinary daily street life, to the users of urban space and to the manifestation of close-knit social, spatial and temporal diversity in the close vicinity of the Anděl hub. The paper concludes with the necessity of including the temporal dimension of space in urban planning and design practice. Methodologically the case study derives principally from direct observation of neighbourhood life and users, but also draws on the extensive research previously conducted in the neighbourhood by the authors and from intensive experience of living in the area.     

Effect of habitat characteristics on mesocarnivore occurrence in urban environment in the Central Europe

Although urbanization is generally considered a major threat to local and global biodiversity, some recent studies have shown that urban environments provide suitable habitat for some wildlife species, including carnivores, yet little is known about the factors that determinate their occurrence and habitat preferences. The main aim of this study was to examine the relative importance of habitat characteristics in relation to carnivore occurrence along an urban–rural gradient in the Central Europe. Carnivore occurrence was monitored using scent stations (summer period) and snow tracking (winter period) in the regional city which was divided into the network of 154 quadrates (25 ha/quadrate) for the purposes of this study. From a total of six recorded native carnivore species, the stone marten Martes foina and the least weasel Mustela nivalis were the most dominant and widespread species in both study periods. PCA analysis revealed the existence of two informative axes corresponding to (A) urban vs. non-urban habitat and (B) residential vs. industrial areas. Surprisingly, the only species exhibiting marked habitat selectivity and avoidance of highly urbanized areas was the red fox (i.e. negative correlation with the first PCA axis). The stone marten tends to avoid industrial areas and prefers residential areas; however its presence/absence was not associated with the first PCA axis. On the other hand, the ermine stoat and the least weasel were relatively unselective according to our results. In conclusion, our results demonstrate high adaptability of various species of carnivore mesopredators to urban environment; however their response to the level of urbanization and habitat characteristics exhibits interspecific variation.