Institute visit: Edina visited the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Leipzig as part of a COST InsectAI STSM. Together with Maximilian Sittinger, they developed a prototype of a "smart" bee hotel, a system designed to detect, track cavity-nesting bees in real time using the Insect Detect camera and software. July 2025

Publication: Our paper led by Botond, PhD student of Torma, has been published in Global Ecology and Conservation with the title "Conservation value of grassy road verges in plantation-dominated forest steppe". We concluded that these road verges, especially those between plantations, may play a role in forest-steppe restoration. June 2025. 

Publication: Our Frontline project paper, led by Péter, has been published in Nature Sustainability with the title: Biodiversity and human well-being trade-offs and synergies in villages. Our results highlight the value of complex landscapes around villages, advocating for both top-down and bottom-up initiatives. June 2025. 

Public event: Edina, Niki and Robi took part in the 'Kert a Köbön' (Garden on the Cube) event organised by CER. They discussed pollinators, spiders, and the effectiveness of unmoved strips in grassland conservation. June 2025. 

Defense: Nathalie has successfully defended her PhD at the University of Göttingen with the title “Effects of agri-environmental measures in comparison to traditional grassy field margins on pollination and biocontrol services in conventional agriculture”. Congratulations to her and on climbing the Gänseliesel! June 2025. 

Publication: Our Showcase project paper, led by Dávid, has been published in Journal of Applied Ecology with the title: Forest cover enhances pest control by birds and bats independently of vineyard management intensity. Our results highlight the importance of bats and birds in reducing herbivory and increasing economic benefits in vineyards. June 2025. 

Institute visit: Péter visited the Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of Milan and gave a seminar talk at the invitation of Mattia Brambilla. They enjoyed a great birding and orchid excursion in Oltrepò Pavese. June 2025 

Publication: Our latest article by Robi and Niki in Animal Taxonomy and Ecology, titled "A new Panamomops Simon, 1884 from the Hungarian Great Plain (Araneae: Linyphiidae)" introduces Panamomops szinetari, a newly described linyphiid species. June 2025. 

Visiting scientist: It was great to host Dominik Stočes from Mendel University in Brno as a visiting PhD student! Via Erasmus, he collaborated on Robi's solar park research, studying effects on fluctuating asymmetry of carabid body parameters. June 2025. 

Publication: New paper in Landscape Ecology titled "Land-use impacts on crop yield: direct and indirect roles of arthropods and associated ecosystem services in European farmland" from the FunProd Biodiversa project with Péter and Robi as co-authors. Findings highlight ecological intensification potential via land-use changes. May 2025. 

Publication: Our paper, led by Tamás, has been published in Ecological Indicators with the title: Landscape complexity and edge effects shape bird community composition and filter functional traits in villages. Our findings underscore the importance of enhancing landscape features in and around villages. May 2025. 

Visiting scientist: José Javier Jiménez Albarral from SERIDA, Spain joins us as a visiting PhD student to collaborate on bird studies. He recently presented "Birds and bats' ecosystem services-disservices trade-offs in fruit orchards" at our seminar. April 2025. 

Event: Edina co-organized Sustainability Theme Days at the National Botanical Garden, engaging pupils with games and discussions on sustainable farming, gardening, and consumer habits to inspire awareness in everyday life. April 2025. 

Editorial appointment: Péter has been appointed as a subject editor for Evidence Synthesis & Meta-Analysis at Basic and Applied Ecology, the journal of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland. April 2025. 

Publication: Our paper, led by Edina, has been published in Basic and Applied Ecology with the title: Invasive common milkweed strongly simplifies insect flower-visiting networks. Our research reveals the indirect effects of plant invasion through network analysis. April 2025. 

Monograph: Data on the natural habitats of the Southern Great Hungarian Plain, published over the last two decades, have been collected by Niki and Robi. In nearly 400 pages, the work organises the occurrence data of 439 spider species, the number of individuals collected and summarises new regional data, new species in the fauna of Hungary and new to science. March 2025. 

Publication: Our paper, led by Robi, has been published in Neobiota with the title: „Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) invasion, forest-steppe fragment size and isolation jointly constrain arthropod communities and their functional traits”. Here, we showed that habitat fragmentation may modify the effect plant invasion on arthropods. March 2025. 

Election: Péter has been elected as a member of the General Assembly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (HAS), and thereby, he is also a member of the Ecology Committee of the HAS. March 2025. 

New group member: We would welcome Aline Brosch as a PhD student at the Anhalt University of Applied Sciences to our group supervised by Christina Fischer and Péter. Happy sciencing! February 2025. 

Publication: Péter co-authored a paper in Journal of Ecology, "Decline in Plant Species Richness with Chronic Decrease of Precipitation: Role of Dominant Species." Results show species richness becomes more sensitive to precipitation changes after extreme drought events. February 2025. 

Publication: Riho's co-authored article has been published in the Methods in Ecology and Evolution with the title: "An integrative framework to combine migratory connectivity and demographic data". We showed that the sharing of information between migratory connectivity and population data improved the estimation of demographic parameters by the population model and improved connectivity parameter estimates when data were scarce. February 2025. 

Social media: Due to Twitter's shift towards polarization, hate, and agitation, our group is moving to Bluesky. Thank you for following us on Twitter; we encourage you to join us on Bluesky for updates. January 2025. 

Publication: Dávid's paper has been published in Global Ecology and Conservation with the title: "Sap-feeding insects do not respond uniformly to urbanization: The role of urban green spaces and species characteristics." Here, we showed that native and specialist hemipterans are mostly restricted to less densely built areas, while exotic species, some of which are invasive pests and can cause nuisance problems, reach high densities at intermediate levels of urbanization with a relatively high proportion of gardens and parks in the landscape. January 2025. 

Publication: Péter has published a paper in Current Forestry Reports with the title: "Responses of tropical tree seedlings to nutrient addition: a meta‑analysis to understand future changes in tropical forest dynamics". We found that nutrient addition in tropical tree seedlings boosts shoot biomass and growth rates, potentially leading to changes in community composition and forest structure due to human-induced nutrient deposition. January 2025. 

Publication: Kitti, Robi, Péter together with Jean-Yves Humbert has published a paper in Global Ecology and Conservation with the title: "Effects of uncut refuge management on grassland arthropods – A systematic review". We found that creating uncut refuges in mowed grasslands generally supports higher arthropod abundance and species richness, though the effectiveness can vary depending on factors such as refuge shape, size, and the study's methodology. January 2025.