15th
 anniversary
 of WNP

WIGRY NATIONAL PARK

Special issue

of "WIGRY"
quarterly
magazine


Webdesign: 
KAJA
 
2004

Lech Krzysztofiak

Research into and monitoring

of natural environment

The basic functions of a national park include conducting and coordinating research into and monitoring of natural environment. The Wigry National Park has been performing these functions since the beginning of its existence. The Scientific and Research Laboratory serves this purpose. The activities of the Laboratory comprise conducting research and works concerning monitoring of nature.

The research conducted by research workers mainly refers to the subject matter connected with specialization of the people employed. The research conducted refers to the biology and ecology of birds, amphibians, selected groups of insects, flora and plant cover as well as chemism of surface waters. Many new stands of occurrence of rare, endangered and protected species have been recorded. Lists of plant and animal species in the Park have been made. By 2004, nearly 1,000 taxa of vascular plants and over 1,800 of animal species, in this, invertebrate animals first of all, had been found here.

Research workers follow their own research themes, coordinate and participate in research conducted by foreign people and institutions, and supervise students’ scientific camps and students doing their practical training in the Park. Activities within monitoring of nature are connected both with performance of the tasks included in the plan for the Park’s protection and with the tasks undertaken within the system of the Integrated Monitoring of Natural Environment. Apart from the Scientific and Research Laboratory, also field service workers take part in the works concerning the monitoring of nature.

During its existence the Wigry National Park started cooperation with many scientific institutions all over the country. Conducting monitoring of natural environment is an important element of the Park’s activities. The following things are being researched: meteorological phenomena, chemism of air and precipitation, chemism of sub-tree-crown precipitation, chemism of flows down tree-trunks, underground waters, surface waters, structure and dynamics of plant cover, lichens, concentrations of heavy metals and sulphur in lichens, chemism of soil and soil solutions, and invertebrate fauna.

The Wigry National Park has contributed to the development of scientific research and monitoring of natural environment in the Suwalszczyzna region. It has become a main inspirer of a lot of research, created basic conditions for conducting works in various fields, encouraging, at the same time, scientists from all over Poland to undertake research work.

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