This thesis investigates latent theoretical knowledge and practical skills in zoology in differently aged sets of basic- and grammar school pupils and students of biology- and natural history education at faculty of education. Examination was taken by test complemented by screened set of photographs and pictures of animals, which was submitted to sample of 844 respondents. It was discovered, various year-class of basic- and grammar schools pupils and students of biology- and natural history education keep in only slightly above-average latent theoretical knowledge and skills of basic zoology curriculum. Biology education and naural history education students finishing their curricula prove less then 85 % success of theoretical and practical parts of the test used for investigation. It was discovered, the time period after the zoology curriculum had been taught has different effect to level of latent knowledge of differently aged respondents from different types of schools. Results of investigation found between the years 2006 - 2008 are analyzed, evaluated and compared with results of similar past studies.

Modern methods of processing genomic data yield good results, however they are often redeemed by time consummation. This is mainly the reason why this thesis deals with numerical methods of bacterial genome processing which could be a suitable alternative for current methods, both in terms of quality and computational demands. This thesis presents the current methods used for processing of genomes in silico and proposes suitable numerical presentations for the whole genome analysis. Some of these methods are programmed and used for processing further in this diploma thesis. In it, various mathematical and statistical methods are being tested, ones that could lead to successful species delineation of bacteria by numerical presentations of their genomes.

The subject of this diploma thesis is to improve the manufacturing of ISO standard valves using basic Lean manufacturing methods. Focus was at two levels, the macro level dealing with auxiliary processes for the whole manufacturing area and the micro level looking at removal of waste in the processes on one particular production cell.

This master’s thesis deals with analysis and follow-up suggestion of efficiency improvement on the production line in RACIO s.r.o. First part of thesis is dealing with theoretical preparation and understanding lean production. Second part is dealing with analyzing production process and application of methods lean production. According to the production process analysis at the given production line a new solution of the production process has been suggested to increase production efficiency. This solution has been implemented and compared to the production process before, as well as to the production process after increasing the efficiency.

Most methods for analysis of genomic data work with symbolic sequences. Numerically represented genomic sequences can be analyzed by signal processing methods. A new method of numerical representation of DNA sequences, nucleotide density vectors, is proposed in this thesis. Usability of this method for purposes of molecular species identification is tested on DNA barcoding sequences. DNA barcoding is modern and popular methodology based on comparison of short mitochondrial DNA sequences. Beside species identification by proposed method based on nucleotide density vectors, higher taxa rank identification (e.g. families) was also tested. Furthermore, dendrograms were constructed from standardly used evolutionary distances and distances between nucleotide density vectors and the dendrograms were compared.

Reynoutria spp. rank among highly invasive taxa in the Czech Republic. Therefore, a considerable effort is focused on its eradication. This is usually done by application of non- selective herbicide based on glyphosate. However, only little is known about the spontaneous recovery of the native vegetation after the eradication, as well as whether the restoration can be facilitated by additional management. In my master thesis I (i) describe the process of restoration after Reynoutria spp. eradication, (ii) evaluate the influence of factors which could potentially inhibit the succession (such as glyphosate, allelopathy, changes in soil conditions due to Reynoutria spp. invasion), and (iii) evaluate the influence of native-species seed addition on establishment of target plant communities. The process of vegetation recovery was followed on 17 sites in a forest and in ruderal forest-free area from 2007 to 2010. Over the three years of the study, the sites in the forest- free area were covered by diverse vegetation, secondary succession on sites in a forest progressed more slowly. Any soil changes were detected. The process of succession was limited probably because a dead biomass was left on the sites after the eradication. The seed addition was also not crucial for the restoration of plant communitites.

Surface coal mining heavily disrupts vast areas of landscape. Previous studies conducted in these areas reveal that succession processes on unreclaimed sites support close to nature community. It's crucial to understand and be able to predict these processes in order to include spontaneous succession into restoration plans. The aim of my thesis is to clarify establishment and dispersion mechanisms of dominant pioneer woody species willow (Salix caprea), birch (Betula pendula) and aspen (Populus tremula). Study carried out on unreclaimed sites on a large colliery spoil heap near the town of Sokolov. I have studied establishment and growth of pioneer woody species on both graded and ungraded sites, representation of individual woody pioneer species was on sites in different distance from the edge of the spoil heap, birch's population age structure and reproduction potential of willow in accordance to age. All pioneer woody species establish and grow better on ungraded sites. The amount of willow decreases while the number of aspen individuals remains the same and the amount of birch increases with growing distance from the edge of the spoil heap. Birch's population age reveals establishment of new individuals in favourable climatic conditions. Willow is reproductively capable at the age of 10 years...

Each species has specific adaptations to its environment, and since environmental parameters reveal geographic trends, it is reasonable to expect the existence of geographic trends in species characteristics as well. The aim of this study has been to evaluate the effect of environmental conditions on geographic variability of functional traits of European birds. I have analysed the effect of temperature, precipitation, productivity, altitude and habitat type (forest, open habitats, bush, settlements, wetlands) on clutch size, number of clutches per breeding season, egg size, incubation length, age of maturity, body mass, wing, tail, bill and tarsus length. I have used data from the European breeding bird atlas, so that I have calculated mean values of all the traits for quadrats 50x50 km, and then related them to environmental characteristics using OLS and GLS. Clutch size increases with temperature, whereas the number of clutches decreases with it, indicating possible trade-off between clutch size and the number of clutches, whose result is determined by the length of breeding season. Egg size decreases with temperature, possibly due to higher survival of large eggs (and consequently juveniles) in cold regions. Incubation length increases with both temperature and environmental productivity,...

Semi-natural grasslands of the eastern Moravia have big potential to host species-rich plant communities. However, changes in land-use during the second half of the last century were rapid and vast and many grasslands had been ploughed over. In the early 80s some arable lands were sown with low diversity clover-grass mixture and transferred back to grassland. Restoration of grasslands on former arable fields is a major challenge. Their colonisation by grassland species may be complicated by initial seeding productive low diversity seed mixtures. The aim of this study was to estimate differences in species composition and species diversity between ex-arable artificially seeded grasslands and fragments of grasslands with continuity over 70 years in the north part of White Carpathian Mts., SE Czech Republic and identify species traits limiting species ability to colonize the ex-arable grasslands. Target plant species (total of 137) were surveyed on 66 grasslands. Surveyed grasslands were according to continuity and type of management. Coordinates of centroids from each polygon (i. e. surveyed grassland) were used to treat the spatial correlation of the surveyed grasslands. The effect of continuity on species composition and diversity was tested after accounting for differences in the management and...

This thesis is focused on succession in old fields in Central Europe. Repeated sampling, analysis of surrounding vegetation and soil measurements were conducted in the Bohemian Karst Landscape protected area. Samples from the Doupovské hory Mountains and the rest of the Czech Republic were added to discover basic principles of old field succession at the larger scale of landscapes.