Socrates - Comenius 1: 
School Project “We are all living under the same sky”

Biology

The result of our work on the Socrates Project 
in the first term of the school year 2001/2002

That´s us, class V3.A, in the Balinka Valley

Here you can see some of the results of our work

Description of the Balinka Valey Locality

The Balinka Valley is a part of Trebic Massiv. Its name is derived from the Balinka River that flows in this valley. The length of the river is 47 km, it rises above the village of Meziricko, it flows through Merin, Pustina, Stranecka Zhor, Baliny and in Velke Mezirici it flows into the Oslava River.

The whole area of Balinka Valley lies on a massive of porfyrical amfibolic-biotic syenite, here and there interwoven with quartz veins.

The main data: 

  1. Biome ... deciduous mixed woods

  2. Area ... 562.9 ha (wood – 292.9 ha, fields – 153.3 ha, meadows – 116.3 ha)

Dominant plant populations of the ecosystem:

Meadows

near water

  • Filipendula ulmaria, Impatiens noli tangere, Centaurea jacea, Gagea lutea, Ficaria verna, Symphytum officinale etc.

neighbouring woods

  • Anemone nemorosa, Sedum maximum, Trifolium pratense, Knautia pratensis etc.

in wood

  • Chamaenerion angustifolium, Lathyrus silvester, Knautia silvatica, Convallaria majalis etc.

  • Picea abies, Pinus silvestris, Larix decidua, Betula pendula Roth, Quercus petrea, Alnus glutinosa etc.

  • Sambucus nigra, Euonymus europaeus, Prunus spinosa etc.

Map of the area, location of the sites

Site No. 1 / Site No. 2 / Site No. 3 / List of all plants

Main conclusions

The main part of our work will be done after we have collected the dicotyledonous plants flowering in spring. Subsequently we can compare the frequency of occurence of flowering dicotyledonous plants in the above mentioned sites in spring and in autumn. After three years of work, we will also be able to specify the generic changes in the occurence of dicotyledonous plants.

For the present, at the beginning of our survey, we made following conclusions:

  1. We found out that the occurence of flowering dicotyledonous plants in the autumn is very diverse as far as the plant species are concerned! 

    Most of the plants belonged to the Asteraceae (8) and Fabaceae (6) families. Among the less frequently occuring families were Ericaceae (1), Convolvulaceae (1), Ranunculaceae (1) etc.

  2. Some of the plants were present at all the sites, i. e. Knautia arvensis, Achillea millefolium etc.

    These species are not very specialized and demanding as far as the conditions of separate sites are concerned.

    Of course, there were more plants occuring only at one site, i. e. Helianthemum nummularium, Vicia cracca, Calluna vulgaris, Sedum telephium etc.

    These plants are – on the contrary – demanding as to the conditions of the locality. Some of them demand a wet or even soggy site, i. e . Veronica beccabunga, Myosotis palustris or Gnaphalium uliginosum, other ones exactly the opposite: dry, sunny sites, for example Dianthus deltoides, Sedum telephium or Trifolium arvense.