Assessing Diversity Levels in Selected Wine Regions of South Moravia (Czech Republic)

Agriculture, including the viticulture practices of the 1950s-1980s, has led to a great decrease in diversity and simplification of the landscape. Such an environment does not support biodiversity, thus does not provide an ecosystem service, and is very vulnerable to changes and pest attacks. This agricultural production needs high inputs and so cannot be considered to be sustainable. The aim of our work was to assess the diversity of the vineyard sites of South Moravia according to proportions of non-crop vegetation, cropland and bare soil vineyards. The relationship between land-use and locality was analysed with Canoco 5 software for ordination analysis. Areas with bare soil vineyards, cropland and intensive orchards can be regarded as areas that decrease the diversity of the landscape, while elements such as non-crop vegetation and extensive old orchards support and increase landscape diversity. This landscape with high diversity provides an environment for a number of plant and animal species, which leads to the preservation and support of the biodiversity of the whole ecosystem. The highest landscape diversity was assessed in the Mikulov region, with 12% non-crop vegetation and the Straznice region (8%), while the worst situation is in Valtice region, where 53% and in Znojmo 43% of the total are designed for grapevine production (vineyard sites) and used as cropland.