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Burrowing mammals through their digging activities are important ecosystem engineers and bioturbators in grassland ecosystems. Through habitat formation, they can have significant effects on other species in an ecosystem, structuring their abundance and diversity.We analysed the effect of the European ground squirrel (Spermophilus citellus) on spider (Araneae) and harvestman (Opiliones) communities, because these arachnids are the most abundant and dominant predators with a great variety of foraging strategies, and their community composition is strongly influenced by the physical structure of the environment.We established replicate mound plots positioned directly in the centre of ground squirrel mounds with paired off‐mound control plots undisturbed by ground squirrels. We sampled spiders and harvestmen using pitfall traps on 30 ground squirrel mounds and 30 paired off‐mound control plots at two study sites differing in grazing intensity and plant species richness.We found that the response of spiders was site‐specific, while harvestmen responded consistently to disturbances by burrowing mammals. Mounds exhibited increased abundance and species richness of harvestmen at both study sites, while species richness of spiders was increased only in intensively managed grassland. We also detected compositional changes of the arachnid community on the mounds in comparison to the grassland matrix.Our findings indicate that burrowing mammals through physical state changes in abiotic and biotic material modulate the resources for other species and maintain a high diversity of biotic communities in intensively grazed grasslands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Woody plants in the urban environment are strongly influenced by biotic and abiotic influences and therefore are more susceptible to infections by wood-decay fungi. The aim of this paper was to evaluate the distribution of wood-decay fungi in selected locations in urban areas of West Slovakia. Data of wood-decay fungi came from our own field research that we conducted from August 2017 to January 2020 in 42 locations of West Slovakia. We recorded 855 findings of wood-decay fungi belonging to 42 taxa. Basidiocarps colonized on 59 taxa of woody plants. Majority findings of wood-decay fungi and attacked woody plants were recorded in Bratislava, Handlová, Trnava, Dunajská Streda, Holíč and Zlaté Moravce. The most common wood-decay fungi were Schizophyllum commune, Fomes fomentarius, Phellinus igniarius, Bjerkandera adusta and Ganoderma adspersum. Basidiocarps colonized the most frequently dead and decaying unidentified woody plants and Aesculus hippocastanum, Tilia cordata, Salix alba and Prunus cerasifera. The most common wood-decay fungi on woody plants occurred as saprotrophs (532 findings). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]