![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2025\/12\/popekol_2025_12-1-scaled.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Understanding ecology and genetics of natural populations is a major aim of the research within our department. We do so at many different levels as specified below using a wide range of model organisms and systems. While our primary focus is on forbs and grasses in open habitats within Central Europe, several our projects go also beyond this scope. These include done in other areas of the world such as Norway, Nepal Himalayas or the Canary Islands.<\/p>\n
We meet almost every Wednesday at 11AM on departmental seminars. For a schedule see the calendar<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n Other photos of our department.<\/a><\/p>\n \n We focus on various plant-plant, plant-soil and plant-animal interactions.\u00a0Plant-plant interactions include studies dealing with intraspecific and interspecific competition. Plant-soil interactions include studies of plant associations with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF)... <\/p>\n read more...<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n Climate change represents one of the greatest challenges for natural plant and animal populations. We study how the plants are able to face novel climatic conditions. We explore to what... <\/p>\n read more...<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n Group leader: V\u00edt Latzel The phenotype and behaviour of plants can be significantly influenced by the environmental conditions encountered by their antecedent generations. These influences, known as transgenerational effects, could... <\/p>\n read more...<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n Recent rapid extinction or decline of population size of many plant species is a major challenge of current ecology. Within our research we aim to tackle these threats by understanding... <\/p>\n read more...<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n Why some plant communities are locally more diverse than other communities of the same vegetation type or why local diversity changes in the face of global drivers remain central questions... <\/p>\n read more...<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n Understanding the consequences of polyploidization is a major step in the attempt to understand species diversification. Within our research we are primarily interested in the consequences of polyploidization for species... <\/p>\n read more...<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n Plant populations only rarely evolve and exist independently of their surroundings and landscape context. We study patterns of species diversity and distribution in relation to landscape characteristics such as environmental... <\/p>\n read more...<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n Habitats within regions are important for the maintenance of past diversification of plants, possibly no less important than different climatic zones.\u00a0By changing micro-climates and favoring strong competitors across a century,... <\/p>\n read more...<\/a>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n <\/div>\n \n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Understanding ecology and genetics of natural populations is a major aim of the research within our department. We do so at many different levels as specified below using a wide range of model organisms and systems. While our primary focus is on forbs and grasses in open habitats within Central Europe, several our projects go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":1084,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-57","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57"}],"version-history":[{"count":62,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1272,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/57\/revisions\/1272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Research topics:<\/h3>\n
\n \n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/02\/biotic.png-300x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n 01. Biotic interactions<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/01\/Nepal.png-300x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n 02. Species adaptation to climate change<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/03\/EcologicalEpigenetics-300x150.png\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n 03. Ecological epigenetics<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/10\/vcelnik-300x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n 04. Conservation biology<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2024\/01\/coexistence-300x150.png\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n 06. Plant species coexistence<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2018\/01\/polyploids-1-300x156.jpg\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n 07. Ecology of polyploids<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2019\/11\/landscape3-300x150.jpg\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n 08. Landscape ecology<\/a><\/h3>\n
\n \n \n ![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ibot.cas.cz\/popekol\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2020\/05\/heath-300x150.png\")
<\/a>\n <\/div>\n \n \n 09. Extant habitat types function as harbors of evolutionary heritage<\/a><\/h3>\n