Directional trends in species composition over time can lead to a widespread overemphasis of year‐to‐year asynchrony

Questions: Compensatory dynamics are described as one of the main mechanisms that increase community stability, e.g., where decreases of some species on a year‐to‐year basis are offset by an increase in others. Deviations from perfect synchrony between species (asynchrony) have therefore been advocated as an important mechanism underlying biodiversity effects on stability. However, it is unclear to what extent existing measures of synchrony actually capture the signal of year‐to‐year species fluctuations in the presence of long‐term directional trends in both species abundance and composition (species directional trends hereafter). Such directional trends may lead to a misinterpretation of indices commonly used to reflect year‐to‐year synchrony. Methods: An approach based on three‐term local quadrat variance (T3) which assesses population variability in a three‐year moving window, was used to overcome species directional trend effects. This “detrending” approach was applied to common indices of synchrony across a worldwide collection of 77 temporal plant community datasets comprising almost 7,800 individual plots sampled for at least six years. Plots included were either maintained under constant “control” conditions over time or were subjected to different management or disturbance treatments. Results: Accounting for directional trends increased the detection of year‐to‐year synchronous patterns in all synchrony indices considered. Specifically, synchrony values increased significantly in ~40% of the datasets with the T3 detrending approach while in ~10% synchrony decreased. For the 38 studies with both control and manipulated conditions, the increase in synchrony values was stronger for longer time series, particularly following experimental manipulation. Conclusions: Species’ long‐term directional trends can affect synchrony and stability measures potentially masking the ecological mechanism causing year‐to‐year fluctuations. As such, previous studies on community stability might have overemphasised the role of compensatory dynamics in real‐world ecosystems, and particularly in manipulative conditions, when not considering the possible overriding effects of long‐term directional trends

LOTVS: a global collection of permanent vegetation plots

Analysing temporal patterns in plant communities is extremely important to quantify the extent and the consequences of ecological changes, especially considering the current biodiversity crisis. Long-term data collected through the regular sampling of permanent plots represent the most accurate resource to study ecological succession, analyse the stability of a community over time and understand the mechanisms driving vegetation change. We hereby present the LOng-Term Vegetation Sampling (LOTVS) initiative, a global collection of vegetation time-series derived from the regular monitoring of plant species in permanent plots. With 79 data sets from five continents and 7,789 vegetation time-series monitored for at least 6 years and mostly on an annual basis, LOTVS possibly represents the largest collection of temporally fine-grained vegetation time-series derived from permanent plots and made accessible to the research community. As such, it has an outstanding potential to support innovative research in the fields of vegetation science, plant ecology and temporal ecology

Keith Lowe, "The Savage Continent": Translation with Commentary

Tato diplomová práce sestává ze dvou částí. První obsahuje překlad poloviny knihy "Savage Continent" britského historika Keitha Lowea, která česky vyšla na jaře roku 2015 v nakladatelství Paseka; klíčovými tématy překládaného textu je všestranná zkáza Evropy způsobená 2. světovou válkou a následná vlna pomsty, která se Evropou po válce přehnala. Druhou část pak představuje komentář překladu, který nejprve uvede autora a jeho styl a poskytne rozsáhlý přehled vývoje českého diskurzu kolem odsunu Němců, do nějž následně zasadí jednu z kapitol, zabývající se právě odsunem Němců, spolu s pohledem na cílového čtenáře a jeho recepci; poté na základě překladatelské analýzy původního anglického textu této kapitoly představí různorodé překladatelské problémy, jež bylo při překladu potřeba řešit, a to nejen jazykové, ale i poeticko-ideologické.The thesis consists of two parts: translation of a half of Savage Continent, a book by British historian Keith Lowe, with key topics including the universal destruction of Europe caused by the Second World War and the subsequent wave of vengeance that swept across Europe in its aftermath; and a commentary on the translation, beginning with an introduction of the author and his style, subsequently providing extensive overview of the development of the Czech discourse about the expulsion of Germans, translation analysis of the original English text of a chapter concerning the expulsion of Germans and its position in the discourse, as well as a look t the target reader and reception, and finally describing various translation problems that occurred while translating this chapter, including not only linguistic, but also poetic-ideological problems.Institute of Translation StudiesÚstav translatologieFilozofická fakultaFaculty of Art

Keith Lowe, "The Savage Continent": Translation with Commentary

The thesis consists of two parts: translation of a half of Savage Continent, a book by British historian Keith Lowe, with key topics including the universal destruction of Europe caused by the Second World War and the subsequent wave of vengeance that swept across Europe in its aftermath; and a commentary on the translation, beginning with an introduction of the author and his style, subsequently providing extensive overview of the development of the Czech discourse about the expulsion of Germans, translation analysis of the original English text of a chapter concerning the expulsion of Germans and its position in the discourse, as well as a look t the target reader and reception, and finally describing various translation problems that occurred while translating this chapter, including not only linguistic, but also poetic-ideological problems

Commented Translation: Schama, Simon: Burning Convictions

This thesis consists of two parts: the first one contains a translation of a section from the chapter Burning convictions, in the book A History of Britain by the British historian Simon Schama; the key themes of the translated text are the period of the Tudor reign and the Reformation of the Church. The second part is a commentary of the translation, containing detailed translation analysis of the original English text based on extratextual and intratextual factors, description of the chosen translation method, typology of translation problems and their solutions, and is concluded with typology of shifts that occurred in the translation

Data-Smilauer_etal_2019_NewPhytol_NGS_Exp1

ZIP archive with data files included in two formats (MS Excel and comma-separated-values format

Functional trait trade-offs define plant population stability across different biomes.

Ecological theory posits that temporal stability patterns in plant populations are associated with differences in species ecological strategies. However, empirical evidence is lacking about which traits, or trade-offs, underlie species stability, especially across different biomes. We compiled a worldwide collection of long-term permanent vegetation records (greater than 7000 plots from 78 datasets) from a large range of habitats which we combined with existing trait databases. We tested whether the observed inter-annual variability in species abundance (coefficient of variation) was related to multiple individual traits. We found that populations with greater leaf dry matter content and seed mass were more stable over time. Despite the variability explained by these traits being low, their effect was consistent across different datasets. Other traits played a significant, albeit weaker, role in species stability, and the inclusion of multi-variate axes or phylogeny did not substantially modify nor improve predictions. These results provide empirical evidence and highlight the relevance of specific ecological trade-offs, i.e. in different resource-use and dispersal strategies, for plant populations stability across multiple biomes. Further research is, however, necessary to integrate and evaluate the role of other specific traits, often not available in databases, and intraspecific trait variability in modulating species stability