Last year, in the Site of European Importance ‘Holubyho kopanice’ in the White Carpathians, we focused on clearing several springs and travertine marshes of invasive woody plants, maintaining infiltration pits, and hand-mowing meadows in their vicinity. These rare wetland habitats are inaccessible to larger machinery, which led to the abandonment of management practices, gradual overgrowth, and subsequent drying out. On these cleaned and exposed areas, we sowed seeds of butterfly host plants that support ecologically demanding species, including the endangered Phengaris butterflies.
The revitalized wetland areas are gradually being recolonized by moisture-loving butterflies such as the Scarce Copper (Lycaena virgaureae), Purple-edged Copper (Lycaena hippothoe), and the species of European importance, the Large Copper (Lycaena dispar). In the surrounding meadow communities, there is also an increase in populations of the Mazarine Blue butterfly (Polyommatus semiargus). The meadows adjacent to springs and marshes with restored water regimes are abundant with more numerous populations of flowering nectar-bearing plants, which creates a substantial food source for many other insect species – pollinators.
