Impact of habitat changes on arthropod communities and ideal reservoirs for biodiversity in sandpit.

Our project focuses on changes that have occurred in the sandpit over four years and their effect on biodiversity of the site. The work on which we are based (Vácha& Zeman 2018) investigated relationships between different characteristics of selected habitats (penetrability, moisture and grain size of a substrate, plant cover) in the sandpit and communities of some arthropod groups (spiders, planthoppers, leafhoppers, truebugs, Aculeata, ground beetles), and based on the results, recommendations for the management were made. Repeating the methods at the same sites will produce results that provide insight into how different interventions affect the communities there. The results will be placed in a context of successional stage and a time that has elapsed since the last major intervention. We also complement the site-specific surveys with new methods that focus on arthropod species inhabiting different microhabitats. Our research focuses in more detail on biology of aquatic habitats - we investigate which character of sandpit water reservoir is the most valuable in terms of biodiversity of selected plankton and nekton groups. Conclusions will include not only statistical data, but also results of faunistic and floristic observations during the project, including data on a fauna below the surface.