Paweł Adamski

In recent decades, the non-productive roles of forests—particularly their contributions to recreation and human well-being—have gained increasing prominence in developed countries. However, this shift also generates environmental impacts and presents new challenges for forest management. This study examines the impact of survivalism and bushcraft activities on forest ecosystems, with a focus on the Puszcza Niepołomicka forest in Poland. Given the limited recognition of this issue and the inherent difficulties in studying it, a novel method for assessing the intensity of survivalism and bushcraft impacts is proposed. An inventory of randomly selected points revealed traces of activities such as camping, fire lighting, and shelter construction in nearly 20% of the study plots, indicating significant human activity beyond designated areas. Moreover, survey data from 2024 (N = 214) highlighted a growing interest in survivalism and bushcraft, with many participants prioritizing activities potentially harmful to the environment. A comparison with data from 2016 demonstrates an increasing public interest in these activities, partly driven by sociopolitical events such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine. These findings underscore the need for forest management strategies that balance recreational use with environmental conservation.

Understanding metapopulation structures is very important in the context of ecological studies and conservation. Crucial in this respect are the abundances of both the whole metapopulation and its constituent subpopulations. In recent decades, capture–mark–recapture studies have been considered the most reliable means of calculating such abundances. In butterfly studies, individual insects are usually caught with an entomological net. But the effectiveness of this method can vary for a number of reasons: differences between fieldworkers, in time, between sites etc. This article analyses catch effectiveness data with respect to two subpopulations of the Apollo butterfly (Parnassius apollo) metapopulation in the Pieniny National Park (Polish Carpathians). The results show that this parameter varied significantly between sites, probably because of differences in microrelief and plant cover. In addition, a method is proposed that will include information on catch effectiveness for estimating the sizes of particular subpopulations and will help to elucidate the structure of the entire metapopulation.

We present a long-term analysis of the results of the Apollo butterflyParnassius apollorecovery project in the Pieniny National Park, southern Poland, using a classical population ecology model. Six possible theoretical models of changes in population abundance were constructed and their predictions compared with current data. Models that did not take into account supplementation with captive-reared individuals provided the best fit to the population growth pattern during recovery. This was probably because of the introduction of captive-reared specimens to sites while habitat reconstruction was taking place. In addition, we provide data supporting the hypothesis that a significant reduction in the habitat's carrying capacity occurred during the restoration project, probably as a result of the population being over-supplemented with captive-reared individuals. Our analysis shows that for a recovery project to be successful, captive breeding and habitat restoration should be properly coordinated.

Freshwater mussels are one of the most endangered groups of animals. Translocation is a common conservation measure for protecting them, but the success of this procedure varies widely, and the reasons for failure are frequently unknown. The dispersal and mortality of freshwater mussels was studied using a novel method: the radio tracking of Unio crassus translocated to new sites during a reintroduction project for this threatened species in the River Biała (Poland). Individual mussels were equipped with radio transmitters (10 mussels at each of four sites during low water in autumn, and 10 mussels at each of 11 sites during the spring flood). After being released into the water, the mussels generally moved away from the bank, and then performed erratic movements, dispersing over a larger area on flat parts of the riverbed, finally congregating on steep parts of the river bed in shallow water (0.20 m) near the bank. Mussel mortality was surprisingly low: all survived the autumn trial, and 80% of the radio‐tracked adults survived the spring flood. Some of them were displaced quite far within the channel (>100 m), apparently suffering no harm. The confirmed cases of mortality were a few individuals that had become stranded on gravel bars formed during the flood that were now drying out. Long‐distance displacement was more frequent in lotic or regulated parts of the channel and in the parts where the channel morphology was unstable during the flood. Radiotelemetry should be used to test the suitability of receptor sites before translocation, in order to find places where mussels will choose to stay, and to standardize mussel detectability when monitoring relocation success.

This article discusses the influence of phenology‐related intraseasonal asynchrony on metapopulation dynamics and stability. As the part played by intraseasonal asynchrony is as yet unclear and poorly described, greater account of it should be taken in both metapopulation research and conservation practice. The subpopulations of the Parnassius mnemosyne metapopulation studied here are strongly isolated because of the phenological shift between them, despite the relatively small physical distances between them. This isolation is the result of a significant temporal shift in the species’ flight periods in the main metapopulation centers: in some seasons its flight times in the different subpopulations did not overlap at all. The predicted results of such strong intraseasonal asynchrony are not altogether clear. On the one hand, they reduce the vulnerability of the entire metapopulation to the effects of short‐term random disasters. On the other, the ever‐greater isolation of subpopulations may cause the metapopulation to become a nonequilibrium one, which will have a serious impact on its long‐term survival.