Seed bank and climate change

Our post on the relationship between seed bank, climate change and restoration of open landscapes have been published on the website of the International Network for Seed-based Restoration.

Please click here to read the post.


If you are interested, please see here our paper on the topic.

Kiss, R., Deák, B., Török, P., Tóthmérész, B., Valkó, O. (2018): Grassland seed bank and community resilience in a changing climate. Restoration Ecology 26 (S2): S141-S150.

Symposium on Reproductive Strategies

We are glad to announce an upcoming international conference which we will organize in Debrecen, Hungary. The title of the symposium is Reproductive strategies from genes to societies – Frontiers in animal and plant reproduction research, and will be held between 7th and 9th November 2019 in Debrecen, Hungary.

If you are interested, please click here to see the symposium homepage.

The Symposium will integrate various biological fields while providing a synthesis of most recent discoveries on reproductive decisions including ecology, evolution, dispersal, speciation and biodiversity conservation. The event will be at the University of Debrecen, and will serve – among others – to celebrate the contribution of Debrecen scientists to this exciting research field. We are grateful for the University of Debrecen for making possible this event.

We have an excellent line-up of invited speakers that include four plenary speakers and eight keynote speakers. It is a great honour that the Symposium will be opened by Profs Rosemary & Peter Grant from Princeton University.

The Symposium will be a great opportunity for students and young scientists to meet top experts from Hungary and internationally, and forge new research directions.


We hope to see you in Debrecen,

Orsolya Valkó, Zoltán Németh and Tamás Székely

EDGG mid-conference excursion in Styrian grasslands

During the mid-conference excursion of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Conference we visited mountain grasslands in Styria, in the Neumarkt in der Steiermark region. There is a program called 'Haymilk program' there, targeting high-quality milk production with as extensive farming as possible. Haymilk farmers do not use silage and their cows spend at least 120 days per year on the pastures. At least 75 % of the fodder has to be from local origin (produced in their own farm). This way they can effectively decrease the ecological footprint of the otherwise rather intensive milk production and they can also maintain the diversity of the mountain grasslands. They produce premium-quality cheese and butter in the haymilk farms - we could also taste these delicacies at the end of our field day :)

Mountain grassland in Neumarkt in der Steiermark.

Alpine clematis (Clematis alpina).

Lady's mantle (Alchemilla spp.) holds the drop on the leaves for a long time.

Castle built on a very idyllic spot.

Elder-flowered orchid (Dactylorhiza sambucina).

Common butterwort (Pinguicula vulgaris).

Grazing will start in this site within a few days.

Extensively grazing dairy cattle - here, organic dairy farming is really feasible.

The end of the field day - Now we are wondering about the cheese :)

Eurasian Grassland Conference

Last week we participated in the annual EGC conference of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group in Graz, Austria. The venue was located at the wonderful Botanical Garden, and the event was organized by our friend, Martin Magnes. The topic of the conference was 'Species-rich grasslands in the Palaearctic – a treasure without economic value?'.

We are very proud to our current and former students, who were awarded by the Young Investigator Prizes:

1st YIP Prize for oral presentations - Réka Kiss

3rd YIP Prize for oral presentations - Laura Godó

2nd YIP Prize for poster presentations - Katalin Lukács

The happy Winners: Laura Godó, Réka Kiss, Katalin Lukács.

Our group had the following presentations on the conference

Iva Apostolova, Balázs Deák, Anna Ganeva, Desislava Sopotlieva, George Nehrizov, Kiril Vassilev, Magdalena Valcheva, Nadya Tsvetkova, Nikolay Velev, Salza Palpurina, Tsvetana Popova, Tsvetelina Terzyiska, Vassil Vassilev, Veselin Shivarov & Yasen Stoyanov: Ancient burial mounds serve as refugee islands for semi-natural grasslands in Bulgaria.

Balázs Deák, Orsolya Valkó, Dávid Nagy D., Péter Török, Attila Torma, Gábor Lőrinczi, András  Kelemen,  Szabolcs  Mizser,  Antal  Nagy,  Ádám  Bede, András  István Csathó & Béla Tóthmérész: Kurgans as refuges for grassland species: large-scale multi-taxon study on Eurasian burial mounds.

Balázs Deák, Csaba Albert Tóth, Ádám Bede, Iva Apostolova, Miklós Bán & Ferenc Báthori: Citizen science as a tool for conserving grasslands on sacred natural sites – the main goals of the Eurasian Kurgan Database.

Laura Godó, Orsolya Valkó, Béla Tóthmérész, Katalin Tóth, Réka Kiss, Szilvia Radócz, András Kelemen, Péter Török, Eva Švamberková & Balázs Deák: The red fox  as  an  ecosystem  engineer:  Effect  of  fox  burrows  on  the  grassland  vegetation  of kurgans.

Réka Kiss, Béla Tóthmérész, Balázs Deák, Péter Török,Tamás Miglécz, Katalin  Tóth,  András  Kelemen, Szilvia  Radócz,  Laura  Godó,  Zsófia  Körmöczi,  Katalin Lukács, Judit Sonkoly, Anita Kirmer, Sabine Tischew & Orsolya Valkó: Establishment gaps:  new  and  successful  tool  to  overcome  propagule-  and  microsite-limitations  in grasslands.

Nóra Kovácsné Koncz, Béla Béri, Balázs Deák, András Kelemen, Katalin Tóth, Réka Kiss, Szilvia Radócz, Tamás Miglécz, Béla Tóthmérész & Orsolya Valkó: Meat production and maintaining biodiversity: Grazing by traditional and crossbred beef cattle breeds in marshes and grasslands.

Katalin Lukács, Orsolya Valkó, Péter Török, Béla Tóthmérész, Szilvia Radócz & Balázs Deák: Kurgans as refuges of rare dry grassland species.

Dávid D. Nagy, Orsolya Valkó, Tibor Magura, Balázs Deák, Roland Horváth, Zsuzsanna Debnár & Béla Tóthmérész: Unburned microhabitats and their surroundings support epigeic arthropods after prescribed burning of dry grasslands.

Orsolya Valkó, Katalin Lukács, Balázs Deák, Réka Kiss, Katalin Tóth, Laura Godó, Tamás Miglécz, Judit Sonkoly, Szilvia Radócz, András Kelemen & Béla Tóthmérész:  A  new  aspect  of  the  dispersal  of  alien  plants  in  grasslands  -  Human-dispersed seeds can survive and disperse after the laundry cycle.