Arachnologische Mitteilungen 56

Arachnologische Mitteilungen 56: i-vi Karlsruhe, September 2018 Sad information reached Czech arachnologists in spring of this year – Zdeněk Majkus (Fig. 1), an important Czech arachnologist, an outstanding university teacher and – namely – a good friend, passed away. Zdeněk was born on 1 June 1943 in Ostrava – Přívoz. He was interested in nature since his studies at secondary school. In the years 1960–1965 he studied didactics of biology and chemistry at the Faculty of Natural History, Palacký Univer- sity in Olomouc. From the same faculty Zdeněk graduated in biology and chemistry in 1967–1970, and in 1981 he passed the state doctoral exam. Eight years later, Zdeněk defended his dissertation entitled “The composition of arachnocoeno- ses of selected pit heaps in Ostrava town”. Furthermore, he acquired valuable experience during his stays abroad, speci- fically in laboratory of P. M. Brignoli (Istituto di Zoologia, L’Aquila, Italy, 1983) and visits to Cambodia and Vietnam (1988). However, Zdeněk began his scientific and pedagogi- cal career in his place of birth. Zdeněk’s pedagogical activities were diverse. He started his career at the secondary school in Ostrava – Vítkovice, where he taught biology and chemistry from 1965–1973. At the Faculty of Education (where he arrived in 1973), later (since 1991) the Faculty of Science, he taught many biological subjects (Biology, General Zoology, Developmental Biology, Ethology, Invertebrates of the Czech Republic, Field courses on Biology), and led seminars on pedagogy and arachnology. Zdenek worked there for 45 years and stayed at this institu- tion until the end of his life. He supervised over a hundred theses (only after the year 2005, 62 bachelor and 35 diploma theses). He was also a referee for theses from various univer- sities (e.g. Palacký University in Olomouc, Technical Univer- sity of Ostrava) as well as a member of the boards of a Ph.D. study at the Department of Zoology of the Slovak Academy of Science (Bratislava) and the Faculty of Natural History of the Palacký University (Olomouc). Beside his demanding pedagogical work, Zdeněk also car- ried out research activities. These resulted in many publica- tions; most of them focused on faunistics of his beloved Mo- ravian and Silesian regions. He studied, for example, spiders of Moravian karstic areas (Hranický kras Karst, Jesenický kras Karst, Moravský kras Karst). Together with Jaroslav Svatoň, he focused on spiders of the Pavlovské vrchy Hills, the corri- dor of the Upper Odra River, Osoblaha Region, the Hostýns- ké vrchy Hills, the Beskydy Mts., the Jeseníky Mts. and other many areas in Moravia and Silesia. He found for the first time five spider species new for the Czech Republic, namely: Alo- pecosa pinetorum and Pardosa agricola (Lycosidae), Araniella inconspicua (Araneidae), Heliophanus patagiatus and Talavera aperta (Salticidae). Zdeněk also participated in four Euro- pean Colloquia of Arachnology: in České Budějovice (1994), Siedlce (1996), Stará Lesná (1999) and Blagoevgrad (2005). Furthermore, Zdeněk organized the Czechoslovakian-Polish arachnological meeting in Ostrava (1986), in cooperation with Polish arachnologists. Zdeněk is known among arachnologists (Fig. 2) mainly through his unique research on slag heaps in Ostrava. We therefore call him “The Slag Heap Expert”. Zdeněk proved that slag heaps are a unique biotope where surprising succes- sion occurs. Due to his interest in the ecology of slag heaps, Zdeněk began to cooperate with Polish zoologists from the Upper Silesian Basin. Together, they studied the impact of heavy metals on spiders and other arthropods in industrial agglomerations. The studies on spiders from black coal slag heaps, their physiology, as well as research on the arachno- fauna of Moravia and Silesia belong to his most cited works. Zdeněk Majkus was a member of many scientific socie- ties, editorial boards and committees: Czech and Slovak col- leagues never forget his active participation in the Czech and the Slovak Arachnological Societies. He was also a member of the Czech Zoological Society, Czech Entomological Soci- ety, Arachnologische Gesellschaft (Germany) and C.I.D.A. (Centre international de documentation arachnologique) in Paris. Zdeněk also worked as member of the departmental committee for development of universities and as an editor of the journal Acta Facultatis Rerum Naturalium Universi- tatis Ostraviensis. He belonged to long-lasting organisers of scientific competitions of Czech students (Secondary-School Scientific Activity, Biological Olympiad). As an enthusiastic biologist, Zdeněk took part for many years in the populariza- tion of biology, especially in organisation of the international film festival Ekofilm. Nachruf / Obituary Farewell to RNDr. Zdeněk Majkus, CSc. Fig. 1: Dr. Zdeněk Majkus in 2012 (photo M. Dominik)