The European bison is the largest terrestrial mammal in Europe. After extinction in the wild at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was re-introduced to Białowieża Forest and other woodlands in Eastern Europe. In this paper, we analysed the movements of European bison beyond the continuous woodlands of the Białowieża Forest (NE Poland) between 1964 and 2010. In total, 1,117 direct observations of bison were collected. The number of males moving out of the forest fluctuated during the study period, whilst the number of females steadily increased. The number of male observations outside of the forest per annum was dependent on the population size and snow depth, whilst the number of cows in mixed groups moving outside of the forest was correlated with the population size only. Males were observed mainly alone (50 % of observations) or in small groups of two to three individuals (25 %); however, distribution of group size differed from those observed in the population. There was a significant difference between the direction of movement of males and females out of the forest—males moved mainly west and southwest, whilst females moved to the north. This was also significantly different from the expected movement direction. The mean distance of bison observations from the forest border was 1.8 ± 0.13 km and did not differ significantly between sexes. After 1990, males were observed significantly farther away from the forest (2.2 km) than in the previous years (0.9 km). Most observations (94 % of bulls and 93 % of cows) were up to 5 km from the forest edge. The range of bison in the vicinity of the Białowieża Forest was strictly seasonal. Most observations (78 % in males and 88 % in females) were recorded from November to April. Increasing utilisation of areas beyond the forest habitats may be driven by different factors but most probably it is related to range expansion and the bison's preference for open habitats. The strong seasonal pattern of bison movements indicate that the partial seasonal migrations were initiated in the Białowieża population.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s13364-013-0136-y) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
Geodiversity is the natural diversity of features of geological structure, relief, and soil cover, including the relationships between these features, their properties, and their impact on other elements of the natural and cultural environment. It is described and analyzed using various types of quantitative, qualitative, or quantitative–qualitative methods. The concept of a geodiversity map presented in this article belongs to the third of these groups of methods. Despite the use of optimization methods in the form of a hexagon grid or the analytic hierarchy process calculator, it still remains partially subjective. The use of this method to calculate the geodiversity of an entire province (the Western Carpathians) gives a general view of the natural diversity of this area and allows regions to be selected for more detailed analyses or comparisons to be made between them. The geodiversity map is also a very good background on which to illustrate geotourist potential, which is expressed in terms of the number and distribution of geosites. However, in the case of the Western Carpathians, these two variables do not correlate with each other.
Utworzona w wyniku rozbioru I Rzeczypospolitej Galicja funkcjonowała w oderwaniu od pozostałej części ziem polskich przez prawie 150 lat. Duża autonomia największej terytorialnie prowincji monarchii austro-węgierskiej od drugiej połowy XIX w. wpłynęła na ukształtowanie się trwałych struktur społeczno-gospodarczych tej prowincji. Szczególny wpływ na wykrystalizowanie się stabilnych układów przestrzennych w Galicji wywarł fakt, że to właśnie pod koniec XIX wieku nastąpiły doniosłe zmiany w rozwoju społeczno-ekonomicznym tych ziem. W artykule dokonano analizy przestrzennego zróżnicowania dynamiki rozwoju lokalnego w Małopolsce w odniesieniu do teorii długiego trwania. W oparciu o wybrane cechy społeczno-gospodarcze skonstruowano syntetyczny wskaźnik rozwoju, na podstawie którego porównano hierarchię struktury rozwoju Małopolski w 1900 i 2002 roku. Analiza została przeprowadzona w oparciu o dane statystyczne oraz narzędzia GIS. Odnotowane zróżnicowanie rozwoju wynika głównie z globalnych przemian politycznych i gospodarczych, jednakże zostało one odmienione poprzez lokalne uwarunkowania instytucjonalne. Stwierdzono stabilność struktury osadniczej Małopolski, przy równoczesnym obniżeniu rangi niektórych ośrodków – zwłaszcza we wschodniej części analizowanego regionu oraz w przypadku miast powiązanych z przemysłem górniczym. Natomiast największy wzrost odnotował Kraków wraz z obszarami wchodzącymi w skład jego aglomeracji oraz regiony o funkcjach turystycznych.
The Danube is promoted as a pan-European river, what can be justified for instance by the vast range of its drainage basin, covering 19 countries on both sides of the historical border diving Eastern and Western Europe. Differentiation of imaginations of Danube course from the perspective of 7 European cities, based on research covering 1577 respondents, conducted between 2005–2007 and 2016–2018 has been presented in the paper. Maps presenting the generalized imagination of river course have been generated for each city. It has been proved that in spite of substantial political, economical and symbolical importance of this river for big part of Europe, the course of Danube remains unknown for inhabitants of its Western part, in parallel to more correct recognition of the river by students from Eastern Europe. It has been shown that the perception does not change despite the progressing integration processes.
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