Recreational use on mountain summits has caused severe degradation of soils and vegetation. Lima et al. show that soil restoration and maintenance is key to restoring affected degraded areas.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

A Bratislava fairytale

A happy vegetation scientist enjoying a plant community dominated by Viola kitaibeliana. It was a very dense, very species-poor one and very beautiful.
#fieldwork #memories #violet

Ever since I was little I always loved the delicate, ephemeral blossoms of speedwells. So easy to miss them, so common and so unnoticed. Pure beads of blue. And their best friend with the pretty latin name of Stellaria media and not so beautiful common one of Chickweed.
#botany #wildflowers

A female Silver-studded Blue, scientific name Plebejus argus.

Female Silver-studded Blues seen at the Great Orme in North Wales in July a few years ago. The population there is considered to be a distinct subspecies. The wings of the female are brown, the males have blue wings. #butterflies

A storm in an endless sea of green.Or more specifically, a field of medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae) in Bulgaria. A tight-knit community with a relatively small number of species.

Centaurea cyanus/Cornflower
An attempt of botanical art
"A weed is a flower in the wrong place,
a flower is a weed in the right place"-Ian Emberson

This summer I had the opportunity to see this extremely #rare #species of Tulipa rhodopea, an endemic plant found only in the Rhodope mountains, #Bulgaria.

A close-up of a #plant community, monodominated by Spirodela polyrhiza in #Bulgaria. THis is a small aquatic plant, forming dense communities on the surface of various waterbodies. Many creatures like to chill around it like this frog. #bees use it to be as a way to drink water.

I'm happy to share my first first author #Research paper ever! It classifies the Potamogeton dominated communities on the territory of Bulgaria. Five associations are newly documented for the country!
agrojournal.org/30/01-04s.html