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Purpose: This paper deals with the method of digitalisation of the authorisation process for verification of legally controlled measuring instruments, which is under the responsibility of the Slovak Office for Standards, Metrology and Testing, presents the legislative definition of the process and a description of the individual authorisation threads. Furthermore, the work deals with the method of process digitalisation, which can be applied analogously to other processes within the office. Methodology/Approach: We have analysed the law on metrology and identified 26 processes suitable for digitalisation. These processes were analysed in more detail by flowcharts and process maps. Findings: We have found that the most complex process in the national metrology system is the authorisation process, and therefore, we concluded that it will be the most appropriate process for the scope of digitalisation. Research Limitation/implication: Our research is limited by the currently valid legal metrology regulations in the Slovak Republic. Originality/Value of paper: Creating a universal methodology to define a strategy and implementing the digitalisation of the selected industry in specific national facts. The article can serve as a detailed and qualified background in the processes of specific implementation of national metrology system digital services in Slovakia.

A central hypothesis of ecology states that regional diversity influences local diversity through species-pool effects. Species pools are supposedly shaped by large-scale factors and then filtered into ecological communities, but understanding these processes requires the analysis of large datasets across several regions. Here, we use a framework of community assembly at a continental scale to test the relative influence of historical and environmental drivers, in combination with regional or local species pools, on community species richness and community completeness. Using 42,173 vegetation plots sampled across European beech forests, we found that large-scale factors largely accounted for species pool sizes. At the regional scale, main predictors reflected historical contingencies related to post-glacial dispersal routes, whereas at the local scale, the influence of environmental filters was predominant. Proximity to Quaternary refugia and high precipitation were the main factors supporting community species richness, especially among beech forest specialist plants. Models for community completeness indicate the influence of large-scale factors, further suggesting community saturation as a result of dispersal limitation or biotic interactions. Our results empirically demonstrate how historical factors complement environmental gradients to provide a better understanding of biodiversity patterns across multiple regions. A continent-wide analysis of community assembly in European beech forests shows different emphasis on historical or environmental effects on species pools across different scales.

Ecological relationships between supplementary feeding and baiting in situ and vegetation patterns were studied in the mostly forest landscape of the Western Carpathians. We aimed to test the role of wildlife management practices in alien plants spreading. Altogether 82 localities with diverse hunting facilities stretched throughout several mountain areas and hills from northern to southern Slovakia were examined. Presence of vascular plant species was recorded for each locality. In addition, we sampled 33 phytosociological relevés to cover main vegetation types using methods of Zürich-Montpelière approach. Altogether 208 taxa of vascular plants consisting of 144 native and 64 alien ones were found. Among aliens, 44 archaeophytes and 20 neophytes were recognized, including 8 invasive species ( Amaranthus retroflexus , Ambrosia artemisiifolia , Bidens frondosa , Conyza canadensis , Echinochloa crus-galli , Galinsoga urticifolia , Helianthus tuberosus , and Stenactis annua ). Different habitat conditions as well as intensity and frequency of disturbances result in high community heterogeneity. Six plant communities and one group of stands with weak phytosociological relations were identified. A canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) was applied to explain the effect of hunting facilities, artificial feeds and elevation on species compositional pattern of vascular plants and neophyte species, while variation in percentage of aliens and neophytes was modeled using general linear model (GLM). The CCA revealed the significant role of bait site, elevation, coarse fodder (hay), grain feed and fleshy feed for species composition assemblages. The proportion of aliens decreased at higher elevations and increased with the occurrence of bait sites and with the use of grain feed and corn silage. The neophyte frequency was negatively associated with elevation and coarse fodder (hay), but positively associated with the presence of high shooting stand and crushed corn. Based on results concerning risk of alien and/or invasive plant species spreading, wildlife supplementary feeding, baiting and whatever fodder and crop decoy applications (except hay of local provenience) seem to be undesirable. Especially in natural ecosystems and strictly protected areas, consistent and controlled abidance of regulation has to be enforced.

Ranunculus lingua is an Euro-Siberian vascular plant species of freshwater habitats. Distribution and vegetation preferences of this rare species, which is native to the Slovak flora, have not yet been critically revised. The present paper aimed i) to provide the first complex distribution pattern of this species in Slovakia and ii) to analyse all available vegetation plots with species occurrence in order to elucidate the variability of plant communities. The distribution data were retrieved from herbarium specimens, literature records and field surveys. Our revision suggests that R. lingua was found particularly in the lowland areas of the western, south-western and south-eastern parts of the country. It was very rare in other regions of Slovakia, and several populations have become extinct due to drainage or habitat destruction. New localities of secondary origin were additionally documented in some human-made habitats. The temporal trend showed a strong decrease in the number of localities in natural habitats, mainly in the hilly and mountainous regions of the Western Carpathians from the 1980s to the end of the twentieth century. R. lingua was recorded in both forest and treeless swamp communities. Vegetation analysis revealed numerous records mainly in eutrophic marshes ( Phragmito-Magnocaricetea class), willow and alder carrs ( Franguletea and Alnetea glutinosae ).

The diversity of vascular plants in temperate floodplain forests varies between biogeographical regions of Europe. Our study aims to identify the key environmental drivers of plant species richness in forests dominated by black alder (Alnus glutinosa) in Central Europe with four regions: Pannonian lowland, Matricum as the southern part of the Western Carpathians, High Western Carpathians and Polish Plain. We analysed plant species richness and quantified 15 environmental characteristics (soil, climatic and landscape characteristics) in 140 vegetation plots (35 per region). We used model-based regression trees to test the influence of predictors on the richness of both native and alien species. The regression tree analysis identified eight significant variables controlling species richness in three regions and all bioregions together but found no significant predictor in Matricum. The analysis of the joint dataset indicates that native plant richness was controlled by the effects of catchment slope, soil reaction and precipitation of the warmest quarter. In contrast, the richness of alien species was influenced by the precipitation of the warmest quarter, soil phosphorous and temperature. The species richness of native plants in the High Western Carpathians was driven by soil reaction and the presence of artificial surfaces around the plots, while the richness trend in the Pannonain lowland was determined by annual temperature. Alien richness was affected by the proportion of agricultural areas in the High Western Carpathians, by the stream power index in the Polish Plain and by soil reaction in the Pannonian lowland. The explanatory power of the tree models ranged from 22 to 36%. Our results suggest that the predictability of the richness patterns is contingent upon the specific regions, which differ in the length of environmental gradients.

The effects of local and regional environmental variables as well as spatial gradients on the plant species composition of two types of alder-dominated forests (riparian forests and alder carrs) with contrasting connectivity were studied across the Western Carpathians from Hungary through Slovakia to Poland. We used large vegetation (240 sampling plots) and environmental (24 variables) datasets, which were accompanied by spatial variables represented by principal coordinates of neighbour matrices. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) of the two datasets revealed 13 and 29 variables with significant effects on variation in species composition of alder carrs and riparian alder forests, which jointly explained 41.2% and 36.4% of the variability, respectively. Altitude was the most important factor explaining 7.7% of the variability in the species composition of alder carrs and 8.2% in riparian alder forests. Variation partitioning in CCA revealed that local variables were crucial drivers for species composition patterns in alder carrs, while spatial processes unrelated to the measured environmental variables shaped the vegetation structure of riparian forests.

Iris sibirica is a threatened plant species of the Central European flora, but its distribution and vegetation ecology in Slovakia have not been studied so far. Therefore, we aimed to compile a complex chorology of this species and to analyse phytosociological plots with the species occurrence. Our results suggest that Iris sibirica occurs almost in the whole Slovakia, with two distributional centres situated in the south-western region (Pannonian bioregion) and in the southern regions of central Slovakia (Carpathian bioregion), but a higher proportion of recent records was identified in the Carpathians. Vegetation classification using the TWINSPAN algorithm divided 80 vegetation plots into 5 clusters. They were interpreted syntaxonomically as follows: i) Calthion palustris alliance, ii) Deschampsion cespitosae alliance, iii) Molinion caeruleae alliance, iv) vegetation of the successional stages and transitional status between wet meadows ( Calthion palustris and Molinion caeruleae ) and fens ( Scheuchzerio palustris-Caricetea fuscae ), and v) vegetation with a transitional status between hygrophilous, fen vegetation of the alliances Molinion caeruleae , Caricion davallianae , Caricion fuscae and mesic habitats. Variation in the species composition of vegetation plots, analysed using detrended correspondence analysis (DCA) and interpreted using Ellenberg indicator values for vascular plants, showed a shift along the first DCA axis from taxa typical for nutrient-rich and shaded but thermophilic sites to taxa of open and relatively cold habitats on nutrient-poor soils. The second DCA axis corresponded to the moisture gradient, which controlled the pattern of plant species richness.

European riparian forests are in general susceptible to plant invasions compared to other natural forest habitats. Their descriptive vegetation overviews with phytosociological affiliation contain detail insight into species composition patterns at various geographical scales, but quantitative assessment of the relationship between non-native plant richness and measured environmental variables is still scarce. We used two vegetation datasets of alder-dominated forests to analyse plant invasion patterns in the Pannonian and the Carpathian region of Slovakia. A large dataset of 918 vegetation plots was used at the regional scale, whereas 40 vegetation plots completed by ecological (mainly soil, climatic) predictors were used at the local scale in order to determine how they shape non-native species richness. We found significant differences ( < 0.05) between the Pannonian and the Carpathian region in the number of non-native vascular plants at both scales, with altitude being the most important predictor. Generalized Linear Models accounted for 56.6% and 59.6% of alien species richness data in the Pannonian and Carpathian region, respectively. Alien richness was affected by altitude and soil pH in the Pannonian region, but only by altitude in the Carpathian region.

Plant species diversity of black alder-dominated forests was studied in three biogeographical regions (Alpine, Continental and Pannonian) of Central Europe. They were represented by regions of the Polish Plain (Continental), the High Western Carpathians and Matricum of the Western Carpathians (Alpine) and the Pannonian lowland (Pannonian). We analysed 35 plots per region in order to identify: i) local alpha (α) diversity defined as the counted number of plant taxa occurring in a single sampling plot, ii) amongst-site beta (β) diversity, iii) regional (γ) diversity defined as the total species richness of all sampling plots and iv) zeta diversity (ζ) as a generalisation of beta diversity. We recorded a total of 432 vascular plant taxa in all bioregions; more than 13% were alien plants. Statistically significant differences in species richness (α) of both native and alien plants were found between assemblages of the regions. The High Western Carpathians showed the highest native and the lowest alien plant species richness. Total β-diversity was high in all regions, but significantly differed amongst regions only for alien plant species. Cumulative native and alien species richness (γ) was the highest and lowest in the High Western Carpathians and Matricum of Western Carpathians, respectively. Our results identified the High Western Carpathians as a hotspot for diversity of native plants in Central European black alder-dominated forests.

Orchids are one of the most species-rich families in the world, and many species are under threat in numerous countries. Biodiversity research focusing on the relationship between the richness of orchid species and ecological factors was performed across the Cerová vrchovina Mts (Western Carpathians) testing impact of 26 explanatory variables. We aimed to determine the main ecological predictors controlling species richness and to predict potential species richness patterns. Altogether, 19 orchid species were found in the studied area, with Cephalanthera damasonium and Epipactis microphylla being the most common. Four environmental predictors (minimal longitude, carbonate-containing sediments, maximal yearly solar irradiation, and agricultural land) had statistically significant effects on orchid richness following regression analysis. Predictive models for the nine most frequent species using MaxEnt software showed (i) that land cover and geological substrate had the highest contribution to the explained variance in the models and (ii) strong potential for occurrence of given orchids in several poorly mapped parts of the studied area.