` TRANSYLVANIAN REVIEW OF SYSTEMATICAL AND ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH 4 The Saxon Villages Region of southeast Transylvania Editors Angela Curtean-Bănăduc, Doru Bănăduc & Ioan Sîrbu Sibiu - Romania 2007 TRANSYLVANIAN REVIEW OF SYSTEMATICAL AND ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH 4 The Saxon Villages Region of southeast Transylvania Editors Angela Doru Ioan Curtean-Bănăduc Bănăduc Sîrbu Lucian Blaga” University of Lucian Blaga” University of „ Brukenthal National Museum, „ Sibiu, Faculty of Sciences, Natural History Museum Sibiu, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Ecology and of Sibiu Department of Ecology and Environment Protection Environment Protection Published through the „Sighişoara-Târnava Mare Potential Natura 2000 Site” Project. A.D.E.P.T. Darwin “Lucian Blaga” Orange Ecotur Sibiu Foundation Initiative University of Sibiu Romania N.G.O. Sibiu - Romania 2007 Scientifical Reviewers (in alphabethical order): Petru Mihai BĂNĂRESCU Romanian Academy, Institute of Biology, Department of Biosystematics, Bucharest - Republic of Romania. Marilena ONETE Romanian Academy, Institute of Biology, Department of Biosystematics, Bucharest - Republic of Romania. John Owen MOUNTFORD NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Monks Wood, Huntington, Cambridgeshire - United Kingdom. Viera STRAŠKRÁBOVÁ Academy of Sciences, Institute of Hydrobiology, Biology Centre, České Budějovice - Czech Republic. Teodora TRICHOVA Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, Institute of Zoology, Sofia - Republic of Bulgaria. Fleur van VLIET Bureau Waardenburg bv, Culemborg - Kingdom of Netherlands. Jan van der WINDEN Bureau Waardenburg bv, Culemborg - Kingdom of Netherlands. Editorial Assistants: John Robert AKEROYD Sherkin Island Marine Sation Sherkin Island - Republic of Ireland. Harald KUTZEMBERGER International Association for Danube Research Wilhering - Republic of Austria. Nathaniel PAGE Agricultural Development and Environmental Protection in Transylvania Foundation Săcele - Republic of Romania. Editorial Office: „Lucian Blaga” University of Sibiu, Faculty of Sciences, Department of Ecology and Environment Protection, 31 Oituz Street, Sibiu, Sibiu County, Republic of Romania, RO - 550337, Angela Curtean - Bănăduc ([email protected]), Doru Bănăduc ([email protected]) and Ioan Sîrbu ([email protected]). ISSN 1841 - 7051 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Editors of Transylv. Rev. Syst. Ecol. Res. IN MEMORIAM Charles Robert Darwin (1809 - 1882) Charles Darwin remains an inspiration to biologists 125 years after his death. One of history’s greatest thinkers, his elucidation of evolution by natural selection has overshadowed his other outstanding contributions to scientific natural history. Darwin’s many publications encompassed an impressive range of interest and expertise: the vast body of data he accumulated in support of his theory of evolution, together with major contributions on animal and human behaviour, barnacles, climbing and insectivorous plants, coral reefs, earthworms and orchid pollination. He was a geologist, and as good a botanist as he was zoologist. Always a keen naturalist, Darwin showed little early promise as a scholar, either at school in Shrewsbury or at university. He originally studied medicine at Edinburgh but left to read theology at Cambridge University. There the botanist William Henslow befriended him, encouraging his interests and, most significantly, recommending him in 1831 to Captain Robert FitzRoy for the post of naturalist on the round-the-world voyage of the naval survey- ship HMS Beagle. Darwin’s varied experiences on this 5-year voyage, especially in South America and the Galapagos Islands, stimulated his remarkable intellect and he followed them up with an active scientific life on his return to England. After his marriage to Emma Wedgwood, he settled at Down House in Kent and there applied himself to his studies. An invalid for much of his life, a man of substantial financial means (but who worried about money), and deeply devoted to his large family, Darwin rarely travelled far from home. Nevertheless he received many visitors and pursued extensive correspondence with colleagues in Britain and Europe. He slowly accumulated material towards a theory of evolution, but it needed a letter in 1858 from the Far East from Alfred Russell Wallace (1823-1913) proposing a similar hypothesis, and the entreaties of Joseph Hooker and celebrated geologist Charles Lyell, to persuade Darwin to publish his work. In a famous gentlemanly compromise, a few weeks later Darwin and Wallace presented a joint communication to the Linnean Society of London. This meeting attracted little interest at the time - but publication of On the Origin of Species by Natural Selection the following year caused a sensation. In 1860 the British Association for the Advancement of Science met in Oxford, where Darwin’s work was debated. Darwin himself, too ill or perhaps too diffident (he referred to the Origin as just an “Abstract” of his ideas!), did not appear to hear the Bishop of Oxford ridicule his work - only to be powerfully rebuffed by a young zoologist, Thomas Henry Huxley, an untiring champion of evolution. Darwin, a gentle, modest and scrupulously honest man, would have been astonished at the impact of his work on biology and human thought. The ideal researcher, he had ample time to devote to his work, a surfeit of curiosity, an ability (as he put it) “for grinding general laws out of a large collection of facts”, and those periodic flashes of rich intuition that are the mark of genius. He knew how much his ideas undermined the traditional teaching of the Church, and his own religious belief faltered on the death of his youngest daughter, but he refrained from general public debate - unlike his colleague Wallace, an active humanist and socialist. Darwin rests in London’s Westminster Abbey alongside Isaac Newton, another remarkable man who bequeathed a huge scientific legacy. For a time in the early 20th century Darwin was discredited by the rise of genetics, his evolutionary theory having not explained the mechanism of heredity. But today his reputation is assured by a great body of experimental work, and in the age of molecular biology he remains a pivotal figure of ecology, evolutionary biology and genetics - and all biological sciences. The Editors Transylvanian Review of Systematical and Ecological Research 4. The Saxon Villages Region of southeast Transylvania 2007 CONTENTS Preface; The Editors Aspects concerning the superficial liquid flow in the Târnava Mare River middle hydrographic basin (Transylvania, Romania); Valer DOBROS ...............................................................…….....….…. 1. Characteristics of the relief from the central-eastern part of the Târnavelor Plateau, with reference to present modelling and the associate geomorphologic risk (Transylvania, Romania); Marioara COSTEA ……………….....……...…………....................… 7. Stratigraphic considerations on the southern sector of the Târnava Mare Plateau (Transylvania, Romania); Rodica CIOBANU .................................................................................. 23. Macromycetes of the Breite Nature Reserve of ancient oaks, (Transylvania, Romania); Livia BUCŞA .......................................................................................... 33. The riverside thickets of the Saxon Villages area of south-east Transylvania (Romania); Constantin DRĂGULESCU …............................................................... 43. Xerophilous and Xero-Mesophilous grasslands on slumping hills around the saxon villages Apold and Saschiz (Transylvania, Romania); Erika SCHNEIDER-BINDER ................................................................ 55. Ruderal flora of the Saxon Villages (Transylvania, Romania): a neglected conservation constituency; John AKEROYD ..................................................................................... 65. The challenge of High Nature Nature Value grasslands conservation in Transylvania (Romania); Andrew JONES …..........…...….............................................................. 73. The xero-mezophilic and xerophilic grasslands of Festuco-Brometea class in the Sighişoara - Târnava Mare potential Natura 2000 site (Transylvania, Romania); Silvia OROIAN, Mariana HIRIŢIU and Manuela CURTICĂPEAN ...... 83. Aspects regarding the terrestrial malacofauna of the Saxon Villages area of Southern Transylvania (Romania); Voichiţa GHEOCA ................................................................................. 127. Benthic macro-invertebrate and fish communities of some southern Târnava Mare River tributaries (Transylvania, Romania); Angela CURTEAN-BĂNĂDUC and Doru BĂNĂDUC ........................... 135. Regional distribution, dynamic and determinants of breeding pond use in Pelobates fuscus (Amphibia) in the middle section of the Târnava Mare Basin (Transylvania, Romania); Tibor HARTEL, Kinga ÖLLERER and Cosmin-Ioan MOGA ................ 149. The herpetofauna of the Sighişoara area (Transylvania, Romania); Ioan GHIRA ............................................................................................ 159. Distribution, population size and dynamics of the white stork (Ciconia ciconia L.) in the Hârtibaciu River basin (Transylvania, Romania); Ferenc Kosa and Tamas Papp ...............................................................