Department of Plankton and Fish Ecology

Head of the Department:
Jan Kubečka

Scientists:
Zdenek Brandl, Martin Čech, Eva Hohausová, Jaroslava Frouzová, Jaroslav Hrbáček, Jiří Macháček, Josef Matěna, Jiří Peterka, Marie Prchalová, Jaromír Seďa, Mojmír Vašek

PhD Students:
Vladislav Draštík, Michal Kratochvíl, Tomáš Jůza, Milan Muška, Milan Říha, Michal Tušer

Technical staff: 
Zdeněk Prachař, Jana Zemanová

This department carries out the research of zooplankton and fish (FISHECU - Fish Ecology Unit). The research is oriented on the role, the biotic communities play in the food web of reservoirs or lakes including the relationships with physical, chemical and microbial processes and human influences. The department adresses causal questions of quantitative and qualitative occurrence of different organisms in time and space. The emphasis is on biotic interactions (feeding, growth, mortality, predation, production) which facilitate ecological success of reservoir species. Both bottom-up (nutrients-fish) and top-down (fish-nutrients) approaches are followed. Long-term development of zooplankton and fish during reservoirs ageing are also studied. The department carries out extensive field surveys and a number of defined laboratory experiments. Limited attention is paid to geographical and systematic aspects of biology of water organisms.

The staff members cover a great deal of the field work of the Institute, they are responsible for the regular monitoring of the Slapy and Rimov Reservoirs.