Scientific visit and a seminar talk: Edina and Riho visited the secondment group of Riho's Marie Skłodowska-Curie Fellowship, led by Prof. Thomas Frank (Institute of Zoology, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), in Vienna). Edina presented a seminar talk entitled "Invasion and fragmentation effects on pollinator communities in the sandy forest-steppe habitat". November 2023

Publication: Péter’s co-authored paper has been published in Journal for Nature Conservation: “A systematic review on the effectiveness of crop architecture-related in-field measures for promoting ground-breeding farmland birds”. The few existing studies suggest, that there is a high potential for crop architecture-related infield measures to promote ground-breeding farmland birds, and thus bring them back as ‘agricultural byproducts’. November 2023. 

Publication: Maxime’s, our former guest, paper has been published in Journal of Applied Ecology with Péter as a co-author: “Synthesis of highbush blueberry pollination research reveals region-specific differences in the contributions of honeybees and wild bees”. Our finding that both honeybees and wild bees enhance pollination highlights the possibility of adopting different management strategies that utilize honeybees, wild bees or both depending on the specific context and region. October 2023. 

Conference: Niki, Tomás and Robi gave a workshop on dry grassland spiders at the Eurasian Grassland Conference in Szarvas, Hungary. September 2023 

Conference: Kata, Dávid, Tamás, Robi and Péter participated at the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of Germany, Austria and Switzerland in Leipzig, Germany. We co-organized a session, and presented six talks and four posters. September 2023. 

Publication: Péter’s co-authored paper has been published in Nature Food with the title: “Agricultural diversification promotes sustainable and resilient global rice production”. Our results show that agricultural diversification can substantially increase biodiversity, improve economy and reduce crop damage, while promoting win–win scenarios between yield and other ecosystem services in most cases. September 2023. 

Publication: Riho's co-authored article has been published in Wetlands with the title: "Small Space but High Diversity: Spatial and Temporal Habitat Use by Endangered Eurasian Curlew at Wintering Sites Throughout Europe". The study results show that Eurasian curlews' were very faithful to their wintering sites throughout the winter as well their wintering areas home ranges. September 2023. 

Publication: Tomas' paper has been published in the journal Forest Ecology and Management with the title: “Effects of land use and climate on web-building spiders and their prey in dry dipterocarp forests”. Our results indicate that the predation by web-building spiders in dry dipterocarps is most threatened by changes in rainfall pattern and by agricultural intensification at the landscape scale. September 2023. 

Publication: Our paper with Csaba Tölgyesi’s first authorship and Péter and Robi as coauthors has been published in the journal Biological Consecration with the title: “Ecovoltaics: Framework and future research directions to reconcile land-based solar power development with ecosystem conservation”. We summarize our opinion about the creation and management of ecovoltaic solar parks that may represent a win-win situation for all stakeholders. August 2023.

Publication: Our paper with Robi’s first authorship has been published in the journal Science of the Total Environment with the title: “Plant invasion and fragmentation indirectly and contrastingly affect native plants and grassland arthropods”. We showed that the invasive milkweed affect arthropods mainly indirectly by altering microclimate, vegetation and habitat structure favouring generalist species. Fragment size has a less pronounced role, but it may alter the effect of milkweed. August 2023.

Publication: Christine's paper has been published in Science of the Total Environment with the title: "Floral resources and ground covers promote natural enemies but not pest insects in apple orchards: A global meta-analysis". Our results demonstrate that more floral resources and ground covers in apple orchards can reduce pesticide use while maintaining fruit quality. August 2023. 

Conference: Edina, Niki, Riho, Robi and Péter participated and presented talks at the International Congress for Conservation Biology in Kigali, Rwanda. They also enjoyed a bit safari at Akagera National Park, and got to know the country a bit. August 2023. 

Field visit: Péter and Tamás visited the sampling sites of the Frontline project in Transylvania, Romania. They visited study villages around Târgu Mures (Marosvásárhely) and Cluj Napoca (Kolozsvár), which were surveyed lats year, and city parks and city edges surveyed this year. During the trip, they had the opportunity to meet the project partners, Zoltán László (Babes-Bolyai Univ.) and Istán Urák (Sapientia Univ.) for a dinner and discussion. July 2023.

Publication: Penelope, Péter’s former MSc student, published her thesis in Journal of Applied Ecology with the title: “Transition to organic farming negatively affects bat activity”. Our findings highlight the crucial need to consider the time since transition to organic farming when assessing potential benefits of organic management on biodiversity. July 2023. 

Publication: Péter’s co-authored paper has been published in Nature Communication with the title: “Global meta-analysis shows reduced quality of food crops under inadequate animal pollination”. Our results show that pollinators strongly improve several commercially important attributes related to appearance and shelf life of fruits and vegetables, whereas they have smaller effects on nutritional value. July 2023.  

Congress: Riho gave an oral presentation with the title "Landscape structure and flowering plant species richness co-effect bumblebees’ behaviour and navigation capacity" about his Maria Skłodowska-Curie fellowship at The International Association for Landscape Ecology (IALE) congress in Nairobi, Kenya. July 2023. 

Publication: Dávid’s paper has been published in Insect Conservation and Diversity with the title: “Small grassland fragments and connectivity support high arthropod functional diversity in highly modified landscapes”. Our results show that connected grassland networks incorporating small fragments are needed within human-dominated landscapes to promote functionally diverse arthropod communities. July 2023.

Publication: Balázs' review paper, with Robi and Péter as co-authors, has been published in Conservation Biology with the title: “Contribution of cultural heritage values to steppe conservation on ancient burial mounds of Eurasia”. Our results suggest that an integrative socio-ecological approach in conservation might support the positive synergistic effects of conservational, landscape, and cultural values. July 2023. 

Publication: Péter co-authered a paper published in PLOS ONE with the title: “AgroEcoList 1.0: A checklist to improve reporting standards in ecological research in agriculture”. Reporting guidelines can improve reporting standards and therefore the application of research to practice, and we recommend that they are adopted more widely in agriculture and ecology. June 2023. 

Publication: Tomáš’ paper has been published in Forest Ecology and Management with the title: “Opening the canopy to restore spider biodiversity in protected oakwoods”. We showed that canopy opening resulted in a significant spider biodiversity increase. June 2023.

Award: Péter has been elected to be a member of the Academia Europaea. June 2023.  

Publication: Niki's paper has been published in Zoosytematics and Evolution with the title "A review of the genus Sernokorba Kamura, 1992 (Araneae, Gnaphosidae)". We described Sernokorba betyar sp. nov. from the forest steppe vegetation in southern Hungary in Central Europe and we compiled an identification key, too. June 2023. 

Publication: Riho's co-authored article has been published in Journal of Environmental Management with the title: "Behavioral responses to offshore windfarms during migration of a declining shorebird species revealed by GPS-telemetry". The study results clearly show Eurasian curlews' strong small-scale avoidance responses, which are likely to reduce collision risk, but simultaneously highlight the substantial barrier effect of offshore windfarms for migrating species. May 2023. 

Publication: Nathalie’s paper has been published in Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment with the title: “Weak evidence for biocontrol spillover from both flower strips and grassy field margins in conventional cereals”. We concluded that the presence of perennial vegetation at field margins is more important for biocontrol in conventional crops than the margin management as either agri-environment flower strips or simply grassy strips. May 2023. 

Publication: Teja and Péter wrote an invited letter in PNAS with the title "Agriculture, urbanization, climate, and forest change drive bird declines". Here we support the results of the analyses of Rigal et al. for urgently needed changes in the European agricultural policy, with more emphasis on biodiversity-friendly and sustainable measures when balancing socioeconomic and ecological goods. May 2023. 

Symposium: Péter gave a talk about conservation biological control at the Agroecology Symposium for the memory of Gusztáv Szelényi, at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. May 2023. 

Publication: Kata’s paper has been published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution with the title: “Connectivity and fragment size drive plant dispersal and persistence traits in forest steppe fragments”. We showed that both fragment size and landscape-scale connectivity were important in shaping the trait composition of the vegetation related to local persistence and propagule dispersal, and these processes could be supported by the preservation of large fragments, increase of habitat connectivity combined with targeted management of exotic species. May 2023.

Event: Edina, Viktor, Niki, and Gabi participated in an interactive exhibition booth at the Garden on the Cube event in the National Botanical Garden in Vácrátót, Hungary, where they simulated the impact of invasive flowering plants on pollinator communities through scientific games. May 2023. 

Earth Day Event: Kata and Edina co-organised the Earth Day programme on 22 April at the National Botanical Garden in Vácrátót, where they demonstrated the close relationship between pollinators and flowers through interactive games and also built insect hotels. April 2023. 

Conference organisation: Péter co-organized a special session about "Frontlines of Urban Conservation and Restoration" in the frame of Academia Europaea Budapest Knowledge Hub at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. March 2023. 

PhD defense and institute visit: Péter participated in the successful PhD defense of Frederik Gerits as external reviewer at the Gent University, Budapest, Belgium, and gave a seminar talk at Flanders Research Institute for Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (ILVO). March 2023. 

Institute visit: Péter visited the Agricultural Landscape Research Institute (ZALF) in Müncheberg, Germany, where he gave a seminar talk, and got to know the patchCROP project. March 2023. 

Event: We celebrated the World Pollinator Day this year too, on the 10th of March, by highlighting the importance of pollinator protection to primary school children and showing how to build self-made bee hotels at the National Botanic Garden. March 2023. 

Project meetings: Our group became part of the Sustainable Development and Technologies National Programme  of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences for studying sustanaible cities, which discussed with colleagues from the centre in Erdőtarcsa. Besides, we organized a meeting with collaboration partners in our Frontline project in Debrecen to show first results on our village studies, and discuss the new surveys in city parks. February-March 2023. 

Award and conference: Dávid received the junior degree of Gusztáv Szelényi Memorial Medal and gave a presentation at the 69th Plant Protection Science Days conference in the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. Congratulations! February 2023. 

Publication: Robi and Niki co-authored an article in the Journal of Insect Conservation with the title “Heather (Calluna vulgaris) supports spider diversity of oligotrophic peat bogs”.  Our study shows that microhabitat heterogeneity increase spider diversity in the endangered peat bogs of the Carpathians. February 2023.

Publication: Robi co-authored an article in Scientific Reports with the title “Agricultural spider decline: long-term trends under constant management conditions”. This long-term study revealed the severe decline of spider abundances in alfalfa fields and their margins. February 2023.

Publication: Robi’s co-authored paper has been published in Basic and Applied Ecology with the title: “Can rare arable plants benefit biological pest control potential of cereal aphids in croplands?” We showed that rare arable plant cover can reduce the total number of aphids in agricultural fields. January 2023.

Publication: Péter co-authored a letter in PNAS with the title "Testing the potential benefits of small fields for biocontrol needs a landscape perspective". January 2023.