Departmental Description – what we do

The Department is composed of five sections, The Department of Plant Ecophysiology, The Department of Botany, The Department of Dendrology, The Department of Forest Typology, Geobiocoenology and Ecology, and The Department of Tropics

Forest ecosystems
  • Geobiocoenology
  • Forest typology
  • Species and spatial structure
  • Dynamics of forest ecosystem development
Coppice and mixed-age forest
  • Ecosystem functions
  • Allometric functions for stumpage biomass prediction
  • Influence of coppice forest on the functioning and dynamics of forests in temperate and tropical/subtropical regions
Ecological networks in the landscape
  • Territorial System of Ecological Stability (TSES)
  • Management of biocentres
  • Management of biocorridors
  • Protective forest belts
  • Riparian vegetation
Biodiversity
  • Assessment of biodiversity status
  • Biodiversity enhancement
  • Predicting biodiversity status
Climate change
  • Vegetation resilience to climate change
  • Effect of drought on forest stands
  • Effect of prolonged flooding on forest stands
Ecophysiology
  • Water regime of woody plants
  • Detailed study of the transpiration stream profile
  • Determination of stand water-balance components
  • Study of root systems
  • Response of woody plants to condition changes
Dendrology
  • Ecology of native and introduced tree species
  • Taxonomy
  • Chorology
  • Biodiversity
  • Bioindication
  • Preservation of endangered native tree species – GEOFUND
  • Establishment of a complete collection of native tree species at the Křtiny Arboretum
Plant systematics
  • Evolutionary relationships within the genera Carex, Gymnocalycium, Chamaecytisus and Salix
  • Morphological and genetic study of native species of the genus Betula and the species Prunus mahaleb
Tropical Forestry and Agroforestry
  • Application of a geobiocoenological approach in the tropics and subtropics (Socotra, Borneo, Vietnam, Ethiopia)
  • Effects of fire on woody vegetation (Argentina, Chile)
  • Implementation of silvopastoral practices in the Southern Province of Zambia
  • Introduction of integrated agriculture in the Western Province of Zambia
  • Restoration of degraded land in Ethiopia
  • Recultivation of the Cheleleka wetlands in Ethiopia
  • Introduction and innovation of fruit processing in Ethiopia
  • Protection and restoration of endangered dragon trees and frankincense trees on Socotra Island

Background – where we work

  • Building B on the University Campus – houses the main facilities for teaching and research. The Department has two lecture halls on the 5th floor, while the Department’s offices are located on the 5th and 6th floors. Bayer’s lecture hall (room B43) is equipped with microscopes, while Zlatník’s lecture hall (room B45) is equipped for dendrology and geobiocoenology lectures. The corridor of the 5th floor is decorated with a collection of wood samples, cones, fruits and seeds and samples of herbarium trees for individual study by students. There is also a collection of tropical and subtropical utility plants. The 6th floor holds the largest herbarium collection of willow species in the Czech Republic.
  • The Tree Ecophysiology Laboratory is located on the 6th floor and is equipped with all instruments needed for macromolecular and genetic analyses and tree ecophysiology.
  • HHacker’s tree nursery, which is situated near the Křtiny Arboretum, was formerly used to produce seedlings for the arboretum but is now used for ecophysiological research.
  • Křtiny, Řícmanice and Habrůvka arboreta

Cooperation – we are not alone

  • The Department actively cooperates with Czech and international universities, research institutes, nature conservation organisations and commercial entities, with recognised experts from commercial practice or universities regularly invited as guest lecturers.
  • Each year, under the framework of development cooperation, the Department implements cooperative teaching projects with universities in Yemen (Socotra), Cambodia, Ethiopia, Zambia and Ukraine. The Department also leads, or participates in, research and development projects in temperate and tropical/subtropical regions, focusing mainly on climate change, reforestation, recultivation of degraded areas and agroforestry. Students can participate in these projects as part of their practical training or while working on their final thesis.
List of national partners 
  • Biosférická rezervace Dolní Morava
  • Czech Globe – Ústav výzkumu globální změny, Akademie věd ČR, v.v.i.
  • EMS Brno
  • LIKO-S, a.s.
  • Nadace Partnerství
  • VUOS a.s. – Výzkumný ústav organických syntéz a.s.
List of research institutions
  • Jihočeská univerzita v Českých Budějovicích
  • Masarykova univerzita
  • Univerzita Karlova
  • Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci
List of foreign partners
Europe

Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznaň, Poland

Ghent University, Belgium

Imperial College London, UK

Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh, UK

Sapienza University, Roma, Italy

Sumy National Agrarian University, Sumy, Ukraine

The Norwegian Institute of Bioeconomy Research (NIBIO)

The Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)

The University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna, Austria

University of Freiburg, Germany

University of Innsbruck, Austria

University of Oxford, UK

University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland

University of Torino, Italy

University of Udine, Italy

University of Zurich, Switzerland

Wageningen University, Netherlands

USA

Michigan State University, USA

Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Panama+USA

The Morton Arboretum, Illinois, USA

Utah State University + Western Aspen Aliance

South and Latin America

Asociación Centro Científico Tropical, Costa Rica

Cluster Forestal Ucayali CFU, Peru

National Technical University, Costa Rica

Universidad del Azuay, Ekvádor

Universidad Nacional Agraria de la Selva, Tingo Maria, Peru.

Universidad Nacional de Colombia

Universidad Nacional de Ucayali, Peru

Universidad National de Agrária, Managua, Nicaragua

Asia

Guimaras State University, Philippines

Helping Hand for Guimaras, Philippines

Mongolian University of Life Science

Royal University of Agriculture, Cambodia

Socotra Community College, Hadibo, Yemen

Sultan Qabous University, Moscat, Oman

University of the Philippines Los Baños, Philippines

Visayas State University, Philippines

Weizmann Institute of Science, Rechovot, Israel

Africa

Arba Minch University, Ethiopia

Hawassa University, Ethiopia

Mekelle University, Ethiopia

The Copperbelt University, Zambia

University of Zambia, Lusaka, Zambia

Departmental Employees – who we are

The Department’s staff are a diverse team of dedicated experts and experienced teachers grouped into specialised sections focusing on plant ecophysiology, botany, dendrology, forest typology, geobiocoenology and ecology, as well as agroforestry of the tropics and subtropics.

prof. Dr. Ing. Petr Maděra
Academic staff – university professor – Department of Forest Botany, Dendrology and Geobiocoenology
Head of department – Department of Forest Botany, Dendrology and Geobiocoenology
DFBDG FFWT, Zemědělská 3, 61300 Brno (Černá Pole)
Office: B5.48
+420 545 134 060, +420 739 341 962
Department of Forest Botany, Dendrology and Geobiocoenology
Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology
Zemědělská 3, 613 00 Brno
+420 545 134 042
List of employees

Department of Forest Botany, Dendrology and Geobiocoenology

Staff

History

  • The Department of Dendrology was established in 1922 (in the premises of today’s Department of Forest Botany, Dendrology and Geobiocenology) as part of the newly established Forestry Department of the University of Agriculture in Brno (today the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Technology of Mendel University in Brno [LDF MENDELU]). From its inception, the Institute was headed by Prof. August Bayer, PhDr., Dr. h.c. (appointed as a full professor in 1936). During his tenure from 1922 to 1941, he gradually equipped the Institute with an extensive library, specimen collections, a laboratory, and a workshop. At the time, the Institute of Dendrology was considered one of the best managed and conceptually well-founded departments at the University of Agriculture in Brno. In 1928, PhDr. Bayer founded an arboretum for the Institute at the ‘Masaryk Forest’ School Forest Farm at Křtiny, ‘for educational and scientific purposes’, and ten years later he founded a second arboretum in Brno. This second arboretum became a school-wide facility in the second half of the 1950s and, following expansion, formed the basis of today’s Botanical Garden and Arboretum of Mendel University in Brno. In addition, to increase the School Forest Estate’s aesthetic, recreational and educational value, experts from the Institute of Dendrology created forest palisades, corners and viewpoints and planted them with exotic trees, features that are still maintained to this day.
  • Following the arrest and subsequent death of Prof. August Bayer, PhDr., Dr. h.c. at the Mauthausen concentration camp in 1942, his assistant (later professor), RNDr. Alois Zlatník, DrSc. created a new, and still effective, educational division within the Institute named the Department of Forest Botany and Phytocenology (1946–1992). An outstanding naturalist and forestry expert, Prof. Zlatník was the founder of the Czechoslovak Geobiocenological Forest Typology and the Network of Forest Reserves. After 1950, Prof. Zlatník remained a member of the department but owing to the societal deformations of the time, he was deprived of its leadership, the management of the department passing to Prof. Ing. Miroslav Vyskot and Prof. Ing. Josef Kantor.
  • In 1956, the Ministry of Education established the Scientific Laboratory of Geobiocenology and Typology, headed by Prof. Zlatník. This workplace was of great importance for forest typological research, particularly as regards the consistent application of a comprehensive ecological approach, from the individual to the ecosystem. Professor Zlatník was the author of our first ecology textbook, published under the title Fundamentals of Ecology in 1972. Several important personalities came to prominence under the direct influence of Prof. Zlatník, including RNDr. Antonín Vězda (lichenologist of European importance), doc. ing. Zdeno Ambros, CSc., doc. ing. Jaroslav Horák, CSc., doc. ing. Jaromír Vorel, CSc. (prominent forestry typologists), prof. Ing. Milan Križo, DrSc., Dr. h. c. (palynologist and botanist, later working at the University of Forestry and Wood Technology in Zvolen), and doc. RNDr. Ing. Jindřich Chmelař, DrSc. (a prominent dendrologist, world-renowned expert on the genus Salix and founder of the willow collection in the university arboreta in Brno and Křtiny), along with many of his students. At the beginning of the 1960s, Prof. Zlatník briefly headed the department of doc. ing. Jindřich Chmelař, DrSc. (1968–70, founded the arboretum at Řícmanice).
  • In 1963, Prof. RNDr. PhMr. Miroslav Penka DrSc., formerly Dean of the Faculty of Pharmacy at Jan Evangelista Purkyně University in Brno, was appointed Head of the Department. During his tenure, in cooperation with doc. Matovič, an external worksite for physiological research, Hacker’s nursery, was constructed in Křtiny. Prof. Penka was also Head of Department for the International Biology Programme, renamed in 1976 as the Department of Forest Ecology. The close collaboration between the two departments resulted in the application of basic research to forestry (e.g. in the areas of plant water management and general tree physiology) and influenced a shift in scientific focus in other disciplines and departments within the Faculty of Forestry.
  • From 1983 to 1991, the department was led by prof. Ing. Anton Matovič, DrSc., who graduated in forest engineering. Influenced by Prof. Zlatník and his colleagues, Prof. Matovič developed the science of wood in relation to other biological forestry disciplines, both within the Department and within the Department of Forest Ecology as a whole. In his final years of activity, he oversaw the launch of the wood engineering programme and the establishment of the new Department of Wood Science, staffed, in part, by members of the Department. This was achieved in 1995, after which wood science opened up as a technical area of development.
  • Between 1991 and 1993, the department was headed by doc. ing. Jaromír Vorel, CSc., who specialised in the geobiocenological issues affecting forests across the whole of Central Europe, thereby providing our students and graduates with a solid foundation for international collaboration. In 1991, the department was strengthened by the inclusion of doc. ing. Antonín Buček, CSc., who specialised in Territorial Systems of Ecological Stability within Landscapes. In 1992, the Department was renamed as the Department of Forest Botany, Dendrology and Typology.
  • Prof. Ing. Jaroslav Koblížek, CSc., who has expertise in a variety of botanical disciplines but specialises in systematic botany, dendrology and useful plants, was appointed Head of Department between 1993 and 2007. He and his colleagues established the prof. August Bayer Foundation Fund to develop the legacy of this versatile biologist and founder of the Department. During his tenure, the department’s activities expanded into the subtropics and tropics., with research being carried out on the island of Socotra (Republic of Yemen), for example, since 1999. The last name change of the Department took place in 2005.
  • From 2007 to 2014, the Head of Department was Prof. Dr. Ing. Petr Maděra, whose professional focus was the ecology of woody plants and their populations and communities, along with geobiocenology and landscape ecology. In 2008, with the arrival of Professors Jan Čermák and Nadězda Naděždina, the department’s activities in the field of ecophysiology of woody plants deepened, research on low forest (stumps) was developed and activities in the tropics and subtropics (Ethiopia, Yemen, Nicaragua, Vietnam, Zambia, etc.) intensified. In addition, a study programme on the Management of Natural Resources in the Tropics and Subtropics was also established.
  • From 2015 to 2019, the department was headed by doc. Ing. Luboš Úradníček, CSc., who specialises in dendrology and the ecology of woody plants and introduced tree and shrub species. He played a key role in establishing the field of arboriculture and creating accreditation materials for the Arboriculture study programme at LDF MENDELU, for which he is the guarantor. During this time, under the framework of grants with foreign support, studies took place on the responses of vegetation and endangered native tree species to climate change, and new projects were developed abroad, in countries such as Cambodia and Malaysia. More attention has also been given to important and monumental trees, as well as ancient coppice forests.
  • The current head of the department is once again Prof. Dr. Ing. Petr Maděra, having been reappointed on 1 February 2019.