Centre for Ecological Research
Institute of Ecology and Botany
"Lendület" Landscape and Conservation Ecology
News - 2019
Meeting: Robi, Dávid and Edina participated at the British Ecological Society Annual Meeting 2019 in Belfast, where Robi, Dávid gave talks and Edina presented a poster. December 2019.
Publication: Alexandru Tomazatos' paper has been published in Viruses with the title: "Ecology of West Nile virus in the Danube Delta, Romania: phylogeography, xenosurveillance and mosquito host-feeding patterns". Our paper presents the ecology and circulation of West Nile virus. December 2019.
Publication: Johan Ekroos' paper has been published in Biological Conservation with the title: "High land-use intensity in grasslands constrains wild bee species richness in Europe". Our results highlight the importance of retaining grasslands characterized by low land-use intensity across agricultural landscapes to promote bee diversity. December 2019.
Award: Péter received the Doctor of Science title by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. December 2019.
Meeting: Kitti and Robi presented talks at the 1053rd lecture session of Zoology section of the Hungarian Biological Society. Kitti talked about grazing exclusion effects on arthropods, while Robi about habitat type and landscape effects on spider communities. November 2019.
Guest scientist: We welcome Bea Maas, guest scientist, Péter's collaborating colleague, from Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research, University of Vienna, Austria. Bea spent a day in our institute, and gave a seminar presentation and advertised her journal Biological Conservation. November 2019.
Publication: Dorina Podar's paper has been published in Physiology and Molecular Biology of Plants with the title: "Morphological, physiological and biochemical aspects of salt tolerance of halophyte Petrosimonia triandra grown in natural habitat ". Our paper presents mechanisms of salt adaptation of Petrosimonia triandra. October 2019.
Guest scientist: We welcome Alejandra Parreño, guest scientist, Péter's collaborating colleague, a PhD student from Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Switzerland. Ale spent one week in our institute and gave a seminar presentation. October 2019.
Event: Edina co-organized the Family Day and Market event entitled "Ecosystem Goods on the table" in the National Botanical Garden , in Vácrátót, Hungary, where she gave a talk about less-known pollinators and importance of biodiversity. October 2019.
Meeting: Ágota, Tamás and Robi participated in the 19th Annual meeting of the Hungarian Arachnologists, Ágota and Robi gave scientific talks and also Ágota gave a travelogue. October 2019.
Conference: Edina participated at the XXIX. Hungarian Conference of Pest Control Association in Ráckeve, Hungary. She gave a talk together with Zoltán Soltész with the title "Summary of mosquitoes, ticks and emerging diseases". September 2019.
Conference: Fabio participated at the 20th Italian Congress of Ornithology in Naples, Italy, where he gave a talk on habitat fragmentation. September 2019.
PhD defense: Péter participated in the succesful PhD defense of Zsuzsanna Mag as external reviewer at the Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary. September 2019.
Group excursion: In the frame of our group excursion we visited the two forest treatment experiments of the Forest Ecological Research Group of our institute, and did a nice hiking in the Pilis mountain. September 2019.
Publication: Robi’s paper has been published in Journal of Insect Conservation with the title: “Even the smallest habitat patch matters: on the fauna of peat bogs” Our paper shows the importance of small patches in conserving the biota of highly endangered and very sensitive peat bogs in Central Europe. September 2019.
Conference: Riho and Péter participated at the 49th Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in Münster, Germany, where they gave invited talks in agroecology session. September 2019.
New group member: We would welcome Riho as postdoc researcher to our group. Happy sciencing! September 2019.
New group member: We would welcome Kitti Kuli-Révész as assistant research fellow to our group. Happy sciencing! September 2019.
Conference: Tamás and Péter participated at the 12th European Ornithologists' Union Congress in Cluj, Romania, where Tamás presented a poster and Péter gave an invited keynote talk in urban ecology. August 2019.
Conference: Júlia, Edina, Hardeep, Andreas, Dávid and Fabio participated at the Student Conference on Conservation Science (SCCS Europe 2019) in Tihany, Hungary. Júlia won the best talk prize, Dávid the running-up award and Andreas the Community Ecology award. Congratulations. August 2019
Meeting: Edina co-organized a workshop on Ecological hazards of our time - Mosquitoes, Ticks and Emerging Diseases at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, where she gave a talk about "side effects" of chemical mosquito control together with Aniko Kovács-Hostyánszki. August 2019.
Publication: Peter Manning's paper has been published in Advances in Ecological Research with the title: "Transferring biodiversity-ecosystem function research to the management of 'real-world' ecosystems". Our paper discusses barriers of transfer and suggests how new research and knowledge exchange mechanisms may overcome these challenges. July 2019.
Conference: Robi, Péter and András Báldi participated at the International Conference on Conservation Biology in Kuala Lumpur, and then had a short study tour in Borneo. July 2019.
Publication: Kevin Darras' paper has been published in Ecological Applications with the title: "Autonomous sound recording outperforms human observation for sampling birds: a systematic map and user guide". Our paper shows that this advance technique can effectively compete with human observers in several ways. July 2019.
Publication: Clélia Sirami's paper has been published in PNAS with the title: "Increasing crop heterogeneity enhances multitrophic diversity across agricultural regions". The summary paper of FarmLand project shows that increasing crop heterogeneity can be an effective way to mitigate the impacts of farming on biodiversity without taking land out of production. July 2019.
Publication: Riho Marja's and Péter's paper has been published in Ecology Letters with the title: "Effectiveness of agri-environmental management on pollinators is moderated more by ecological contrast than by landscape structure or land-use intensity". Our paper shows that agri-environmental management is most effective at a local scale with strong contrast to conventional practices in simple landscapes of intensive land-use regions. July 2019.
New group member: We would welcome Ágota Szabó as new PhD student at Eötvös University to our group. She is already working with us with an Erasmus fellowship. Happy sciencing! July 2019.
Meeting: Tamás, Dávid and Edina participated in a course about “Scientific communication and publishing” conducted by Prof. Gábor Lövei in Tihany. July 2019.
Meeting: Fabio and Robi participated in the II. Nature Conservation Summer School of Csanád-puszta, and continued field work with the help of several students. July 2019.
Publication: Christoph Gayer's paper has been published in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment with the title: "Carabid functional diversity is enhanced by conventional flowering fields, organic winter cereals and edge habitats". Our paper suggests that a diversity of different measures should be prioritized targeting the enhancement of edge habitats as well as productive and non-productive measures. June 2019.
Publication: Edina's paper has been published in North-Western Journal of Zoology with the title: "Faunistic survey on Culicidae (Diptera) and their arboviruses in the area of a metropolis Cluj-Napoca, Romania". Our paper shows a low significance of local Culicidae fauna in terms of medical importance. June 2019.
Award: Robi won the Bolyai János Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with the proposal "The role of landscape and habitat parameters in invertebrate biodiversity conservation." (https://mta.hu/mta_hirei/a-szabad-kutatas-eselye-a-legkivalobbaknak-atadtak-a-bolyai-osztondijakat-109854 ) June 2019.
Defence: Péter successfully defended his Doctor of Science dissertation at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences with the title: "Biodiversity conservation and environmental management in European farmlands" (http://real-d.mtak.hu/1128/7/dc_1490_17_doktori_mu.pdf). June 2019.
Film: A German movie (https://www.addendum.org/factum/sendung/muslimbrueder/grossbetriebe-besser-fuers-klima/) is out about the trade-offs of small vs. large-scale agriculture, where Teja and Annika are also talking about our results in Nature Ecol. Evol. (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0272-x) and Proc. Roy. Soc. B (https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/pdf/10.1098/rspb.2017.2242). June 2019.
Publication: Urs G. Kormann's paper has been published in Landscape Ecology with the title: "Connectedness of habitat fragments boosts conservation benefits for butterflies, but only in landscapes with little cropland". Our paper suggests that increasing habitat connectivity bolsters butterfly communities, but only if accompanied by measures to soften the matrix. June 2019.
Meeting: We participated in the annual general assembly of the Centre for Ecological Research in Tihany, where Péter presented the plans and first achievements of our group. May 2019.
Award: Ágota Szabó, MSc student of Robi, achieved the second place in the Animal Ecology I. Section of National Student Competition with her thesis: Functional diversity of spider assemblages of natural forest steppes and non-native pine plantations. Congratulations. May 2019.
Meeting: Péter participated in an official visit at China Agricultural University for the invitation of Prof. Liu Yunhui, where he gave talks on meta-analysis, agri-environment schemes, organic farming and urbanization, and of course visited cultural and natural heritages and study sites. May 2019.
Publication: Maria Rosa Rossetti's paper has been published in Ecosphere with the title: "Insect and plant traits drive local and landscape effects on herbivory in grassland fragments". Our paper highlights the need to consider different herbivore and plant traits for a better understanding of herbivory responses to local and landscape factors. May 2019.
Meeting: Péter gave a workshop on "Introduction to meta-analysis in ecology" at the 6th Fresh Blood for Fresh Water Ecologist conference (http://fbfw2019.okologia.mta.hu), in Tihany, Hungary. April 2019.
Publication: Ingo Grass' paper has been published in People and Nature with the title: "Land‐sharing/‐sparing connectivity landscapes for ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation". Our paper shows that successful management of multifunctional landscapes requires the combination of land‐sharing and land‐sparing measures within spatially well‐connected landscape mosaics. April 2019.
Conference: Our group participated at the 20th Biologists' Days at the Babes-Bolyai University in Cluj-Napoca (Kolozsvár in Hungarian) in Romania, where Robi, Edina and Dávid gave talks, and Péter had a plenary lecture. April 2019.
Spring has arrived in the beautiful National Botanical Garden, which hosts our institute. Our group is busy with preparing trap nests with helping volunteers. April 2019.
Meeting: Péter gave a talk in the Biology Club of the Eötvös College of Szeged University about the importance of landscape structure for biodiversity conservation. April 2019.
Publication: Emely Martin's paper has been published in Ecology Letters with the title: "The interplay of landscape composition and configuration: new pathways to manage functional biodiversity and agroecosystem services across Europe". Our paper shows that enhancing edge density in European agroecosystems can promote functional biodiversity and yield-enhancing ecosystem services. April 2019. "
Conference: Our group participated at the 7th Synzoological Sympusium in the Hungarian Natural History Museum, where Tamás presented his first ever poster, Edina and Dávid gave talks, and Péter contributed to the discussion theme about open access publication. March 2019.
New group member: We would welcome Fabio Marcolin from Italy as assistant research fellow to our group. Happy sciencing! March 2019.
Meeting: Our group organized the joint Writing retreat with the Agroecology group of University of Goettingen (http://www.uni-goettingen.de/en/74726.html), where Péter spent nearly 11 years. We discussed joint ideas and spent a nice week together at Lake Balaton, Hungary (https://www.bli.okologia.mta.hu/en). March 2019.
Publication: Kapilkumar Ingle's paper has been published in Insect Conservation and Diversity with the title: "Forest type interacts with milkweed invasion to affect spider communities". We analyzed the species richness, functional diversity and species composition and showed that invaded plantations are low-quality secondary habitats for the original forest steppe spider fauna. March 2019.
Publication: Christoph Gayer's paper has been published in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment with the title: "Agricultural intensification at local and landscape scales impairs farmland birds, but not skylarks (Alauda arvensis)". Our paper shows that arable bird diversity benefits from reducing local intensification and field size, whereas the open-land species skylark benefits from large fields. March 2019.
Meeting: Robi participated in the Secondary and Anthropogenic habitats workshop in Debrecen as an invited speaker, and gave a presentation on the role of secondary habitats and small habitat patches in conservation of forest-steppe spiders. March 2019.
Guest scientist: Balázs Deák from University of Debrecen visited our group with his colleagues, Orsolya Valkó and Béla Tóthmérész, and gave a seminar presentation. February 2019.
Carnival of the Centre for Ecological Research in Tihany at Lake Balaton, where all colleagues from the three institutes meet, dress up, dance and spend a nice night together. Majority of our group participated this time in contrast to the wintry weather. February 2019.
Award: Dávid Korány was awarded by the Lajos Rainiss medallion. This is a prize of the Agrozoological Section of the Hungarian Plant Protection Society given for the development of environmentally friendly plant protection technologies. February 2019.
Guest scientist: We welcome Christoph Gayer as guest scientist, Péter's PhD student from University of Applied Science Nürtingen-Geislingen. Christoph spent one week in our institute and gave a seminar presentation. February 2019.
Publication: Jacqueline Loos's book chapter has been published in the Springer book of "Atlas of ecosystem services - drivers, risks, and societal responses" with the title: " Vulnerability of ecosystem services in farmland depends on landscape management". Our chapter shows that multifunctionality of agricultural landscapes calls for managing trade-offs between ecosystem services. February 2019.
Winter rest in the beautiful National Botanical Garden, which hosts our institute. Our group is situated in the castle of the count Sándor Vigyázó. January 2019
PhD defense: Péter participated in the succesful PhD defense of Dominik Ganser as external reviewer at Bern University, Switzerland. January 2019.
Publication: Attila Torma’s paper was accepted in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment with the title: “Species and functional diversity of arthropod assemblages (Araneae, Carabidae, Heteroptera and Orthoptera) in grazed and mown salt grasslands”. Our paper shows that traditional grazing is better than mowing for maintaining arthropod biodiversity. January 2019.
Publication: Robi and Péter’s article has been published in the current issue of Journal of Applied Ecology. A short overview of our results is included in the accompanying blog post. January 2019.
