Conference about Asian grasslands

The Eurasian Dry Grassland Group organized its first thematic international conference dedicated specifically to Asian grasslands, in an online format, between 19-21 April 2022.

The conference lasts for three days, and in three parallel sections, lectures focus on the grasslands of Asia, with a special emphasis on biodiversity, ecology, syntaxonomy, taxonomy, botany, zoology and many other topics. The program sounds very exciting!

Endless road in North Kazakhstan.

 

Members of our research group participate as organizers and/or presenters at the conference. We present the following two lectures:

Valkó, O., Tölgyesi, C., Kelemen, A., Bátori, Z., Gallé, R., Rádai, Z., Bragina, T.M., Deák, B.: Small natural and anthropogenic features as biodiversity hotspots in the steppe: marmot burrows and burial mounds in Kazakhstan

Deák, B., Bede, Á., Rádai, Z., Tóth, C., Dózsai, J., Dembicz, I., Moysienko, I.I., Sudnik-Wójcikovska, B., Apostolova, I., Nehrizov, G., Lisetskii, F., Burinchik, S.A., Buryak, A.Z, Kis, S., Borza, S., Godó, L., Gallé, R., Batáry, P., Bragina, T.M., Smelansky, I., Molnár, Á., Bán, M., Báthori, F., Árgay, Z., Dani, J., Valkó, O.: Legacy of prehistoric civilisations strengthens the system of protected areas: A global synthesis of conservation role of steppic burial mounds 

Besides the presentations, I take part in the 'Meet the Editor' session, where I introduce the journals Biological Conservation and Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution and the conference special issue in the journal Hacquetia.

Vertical distribution of soil seed bank in alkaline grasslands - seeds can survive deeper than we expected

Our new paper - the first first-author paper of my PhD student, Ágnes Tóth - has been recently accepted for publication in the journal PeerJ.

The citation of the paper is:

Tóth, Á., Deák, B., Tóth, K., Kiss, R., Lukács, K., Rádai, Z., Godó, L., Borza, S., Kelemen, A., Miglécz, T., Bátori, Z., Novák, T.J., Valkó, O. (2022): Vertical distribution of soil seed bank and the ecological importance of deeply buried seeds in alkaline grasslands. PeerJ 10: e13226 doi: 10.7717/peerj.13226 [IF2020: 2.984]

The paper is freely available at the journal homepage, and can be downloaded from here.

In this study, we were interested in the vertical distribution of soil seed bank in alkaline grasslands. Why is it interesting? In this habitat type, the environmental conditions - such as the very high soil salinity and special physical structure of the soil - are harsh and as an adaptation, persistent soil seed bank can help plants to bridge the unsuitable environmental conditions. Due to the special soil characteristics of Vertisols, crack formation is a typical phenomenon in the arid summer conditions, when the seeds can easily penetrate to deep soil layers. Vertisols occur all over the globe, especially in tropical and subtropical areas in total on more than 335 million hectares extension.

Halophyte species - such as Salicornia prostrata - often have long term persistent seed banks that can help them to bridge unsuitable environmental conditions.

 

We studied the vertical distribution of soil seed bank in high resolution and to a depth that - up to our knowledge - was never studied before. We sampled cores down to 80 cm and divided each sample to sixteen 5-cm-deep segments. Well, it is not easy to describe the extraordinary sampling conditions and challenges... The soil was very hard so sometimes we needed to use special solutions and creativity for drilling... You can see some videos in our past blog post here.

One of the study sites in early spring, at the time of the soil sampling.

 

Processing of the drilled samples.

 

After sample concentration we started the experiment in a greenhouse using the seedling emergence method. We found that the 75% of the total seed density was concentrated in the uppermost (top 5cm) soil layer, but seeds of 5 species were found even at the deepest layer (80cm deep). We found that seed shape was the most important factor that determined burial depth: round shaped seeds could penetrate deeper than the elongated ones. The deep soil layers contained mainly seeds of alkaline grassland species, and only very few weeds.

The vertical distribution of seedling number and species richness, starting from Layer 1 (0-5 cm) to Layer 16 (75-80 cm).

Why are these deep buried seeds important? Can they ever have a role in vegetation dynamics, can they ever germinate? Of course, more studies investigating this question are needed. However we assume that there are several natural and anthropogenic processes that can bring the deep buried seeds close to the soil surface. For example, the ecosystem engineering activity of burrowing mammals can bring the seeds close to the soil surface (see our related blog post here). Also, seeds can be brought to the surface during construction works, or in the soil preparation phase of restoration projects. As an indirect evidence, we often recorded halophyte species not present in the extant vegetation after large-scale soil preparation works, like in channel elimination projects. You can read about our previous studies on the topic here: Deák et al. (2015), Valkó et al. (2017). In conclusion, it was fascinating to find germinable seeds in such deep soil layers which shows that we might reconsider the spatial dimensions of the distribution of the soil seed bank. This propagule reservoir can be more important that previously thought: deep buried seeds can also contribute to vegetation dynamics if some natural or anthropogenic disturbance help them to reach the soil surface.

Halophyte species - probably originating from deep soil layers - on the surface of a Steppe Marmot burrow in Kazakhstan.

Halophyte species growing on large open soil surfaces created in a landscape-scale restoration project.

Biologist Days at the Babes-Bolyai University

The 'Biologist Days' at the Babes-Bolyai  University was organized last weekend. From our research group, Kata Lukács and Réka Kiss participated in this very nice and lively conference. Réka and Kata are always keen on participating at this conference, as they always love to return to their Alma Mater, where they studied on the Biology BSc and MSc. We hope that next year, more members of our research group can participate on this very nice event :)

Réka and Kata returned to their Alma Mater.

Kata's lecture, with the title: People as seed dispersers: Factors influencing quantity and species composition of the cloth-dispersed propagules

Réka's lecture, with the title: Late arrivers perish: delayed sowing of forb species decreases their success during restoration.

EASAC Report on Regenerative Agriculture

The 44th report of EASAC, entitled 'Regenerative Agriculture in Europe – A critical analysis of contributions to the European Union Farm to Fork and Biodiversity Strategies' has recently been launched. The full report is available online in the EASAC homepage, where you can also read the press release.

It was a great pleasure and honour that I could work on this very interesting and important topic. The European Academies Science Advisory Council (EASAC) established a working group, consisting scientists nominated by 15 European Academies to provide a synthesis and critical evaluation of the concept of regenerative agriculture in the face of European agri-environmental policies. The project director was Prof. Thomas Elmqvist, and the working group was co-chaired by Prof. Lars Walloe and myself. We worked with a very diverse and dedicated international team in the past one year to accomplish this challenging but highly interesting task. Even though we worked fully online, we very often met in the virtual space and had very interesting and fruitful discussions. 

The report tackles one of the most important issues of the modern societies: how to make agriculture regenerative, how to maintain its productivity, but decrease its negative environmental impacts. We went even further and evaluated how we can not only mitigate the negative effects but also increase the positive impacts of agriculture on biodiversity? We reviewed a large body of scientific literature, with a special emphasis on reviews and meta-analyses, and evaluated the effects of different environment-friendly agricultural practices on biodiversity, carbon capture and storage and agricultural yield. We gave a lot of evidence-based recommendations for environmental policy and hope that the report can initiate further discussions and can facilitate policy implementations that can support positive changes.

It is a very important and complex topic, so below I summarize only some of the most important messages - from my personal perspective.

- Transformative changes in the way we think about and how we organize the food systems would be necessary to make agriculture truly regenerative. Almost one third of the agricultural products are wasted today - this is a serious amount of food waste! And despite this enormous waste we still establish new agricultural lands, and still intensify the farming systems in many regions, which have serious detrimental effects on biodiversity. Shortening the production and consumption chains and reducing the amount of food waste would be crucial steps.

- There is a huge number of environment-friendly diversification practices that increase the biodiversity of non-farmed organisms, improve the functioning of agro-ecosystems without a considerable decrease of yield (actually, some of these practices can even increase the yield!). These practices include no tillage or reduced tillage, cover cropping, intercropping or agroforestry. These practices increase the permanence of vegetation cover in the fields which have a huge potential for carbon capture and storage in the soil. Actually, the results of the brand new IPCC report point to exactly the same direction, which is great. It would be important to increase the available funding for these best practices in the CAP.

- Our report paid special attention to highlight the complexity of red meat consumption. Industrially bred cattle contribute to huge emissions of greenhouse gases and producing their forage - in large arable lands, with a lot of external inputs of fertilizers and pesticides, traded between large distances - has serious negative environmental impacts. But grass-fed cattle, especially those that are extensively kept in pastures have several positive environmental impacts. They can maintain an outstandingly high biodiversity in many of Europe's semi-natural grasslands. By maintaining permanent grasslands, they contribute considerably to carbon capture and storage, as grassland plants store large carbon stocks in their root systems for a long time. Also, extensively kept, grass-fed cattle provide high-quality, nutritious dairy and meat products. Therefore in the report we paid special attention to show the nuances related to red meat and animal husbandry in the agricultural landscape and recommended the increasing support of extensive grazing systems in the CAP.

- We emphasised that the positive effects of environmental friendly farming practices can be multiplied if they are not only applied at the farm scale but also at multiple farms within the landscape. There is a vast literature in landscape ecology showing that landscape composition moderates ecological processes in larger scales. For example, if mutliple farmers establish high-diversity landscape features (HDLFs), such as flower strips or set-aside areas in a landscape and these patches can 'communicate', then the positive effects on the pollination as ecosystem service can spill over to the whole landscape. The EU Biodiversity Strategy aims to have at least 10% of the agriculturally utilized area under HDLFs (currently, it is approximately 5%), which is a huge opportunity for creating multifunctional agricultural landscapes. If we plan the new HDLFs to fit in the existing system of the green infrastructure based on the theoretical advances in landscape ecology, the positive effects could be multiplied. For enabling this, support schemes available not only for individual farmers but also for groups of farmers, for supporting coordinated actions should be established and be made widely available in the EU member states.

- We also highlighted, that the European agriculture is a very complex and diverse system. Each country, each biogeographical region, and each farm has its own peculiarities and character. This uniqueness of course cannot be fully considered in EU-wide schemes. However, as a principle, it would be important to support those agricultural practices that are suited for a given region, which fit to the regional environmental and socio-economic characteristics and do not sacrifice the non-provisioning (i.e. regulating, supporting and cultural) ecosystem services. For example, the EU's ambition to plant 2 billion trees is a great opportunity, but it is very important not to plant these trees in the water-limited regions.

We hope that the report will help in making positive changes. There are of course a lot more topics discussed in the document, so it is worth to read the text, or the summary of the report.

Here is the 'graphical abstract' of the report that synthesises the three pillars of regenerative agriculture and their synergies, as well as the most important policy recommendations at the farm and landscape scales.

Conference of the Czech Botanical Society in Brno

 

The conference of the Czech Botanical Society was organized in Brno this weekend. It was a very nice and interesting event, and there was a great company and atmosphere :)

We both gave an invited lecture:

Deák, B., Miglécz, T., Lukács, K., Kiss, R., Kelemen, A., Godó, L., Rádai, Z., Borza, S., Tóth, Á., Tóthmérész, B., Valkó, O. (2022): Large-scale restoration on a former military area by soil-filling of bomb craters and seed sowing: vegetation recovery in relation to fine-scale environmental heterogeneity

Valkó, O., Kiss, R., Tóthmérész, B., Miglécz, T., Tóth, K., Török, P., Lukács, K., Godó, L., Körmöczi, Zs., Radócz, Sz., Kelemen, A., Sonkoly, J., Kirmer, A., Tischew, S., Švamberková, E., Deák, B. (2022): Large-scale grassland restoration on former croplands and creating establishment gaps as biodiversity hotspots for improving the diversity of the restored grasslands

We are grateful for the invitation and hospitality, especially to Ivana Jongepierová and Karel Prach :)

Sightseeing in Brno.

Old town of Brno.

The Kamenný vrch Nature Reserve is located inside Brno and is home to thousands of Greater Pasques (Pulsatilla grandis). It was a bit cold, even there was some snow so the flowers were not fully open, but still it was spectacular to see this large population.

Hay transfer is a nature-based solution for grassland restoration: our new paper in Journal of Environmental Management

Our paper has recently been published in Journal of Environmental Management.

Valkó, O., Rádai, Z., Deák, B. (2022): Hay transfer is a nature-based and sustainable solution for restoring grassland biodiversity. Journal of Environmental Management 311: 114816. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.114816 [IF2020: 6.789]

The paper is open access, and can be freely downloaded from here.

As we enter the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, it became more important than ever to find nature-based solutions for the restoration of grasslands across the globe. Hay transfer is a promising restoration method that builds on locally available propagule sources. The idea of hay transfer is the relocation of plant material from a donor site to the restoration site, which serves a double aim by introducing target species and suppressing weeds. 

We tested the applicability of hay transfer in restoring species-rich grassland in a former cropland in Hungary, over six years of post-restoration monitoring. The study site was a really interesting and spectacular place: an ancient earth fortress built by the Sarmatians in Tápióság, Central-Hungary. The steep slopes of the earthwork could escape from being ploughed and therefore the grasslands on the slopes still harbour an outstandingly species-rich vegetation with many rare and protected species. However the plateau of the earthwork has been used for intensive agriculture for centuries, which posed a considerable threat for the grasslands on the slopes. That is why the Danube-Ipoly National Park Directorate carried out a restoration project in the framework of the EU LIFE project ‘Conservation of dry grasslands in Central-Hungary’ (LIFE12 NAT/HU/001028) with the aim to restore grasslands on the plateau and to create a buffer zone that can protect the grasslands on the slopes.

Agropyron cristatum and Marrubium peregrinum in the grasslands on the slopes.

Species-rich grassland on the steep slope.

We monitored the vegetation development of the restored site for six years. We found that six years after restoration, a species-rich grassland developed with 42 successfully established specialist species that had a cover of 45%. It was spectacular to see the year-by-year development of the grasslands and the increasing populations of the protected species, such as Centaurea sadleriana, Inula germanica and Ajuga laxmannii.

In the first year after hay transfer, the vegetation was mainly characterised by weeds and a high cover of the spread hay.

We were also interested in the origin of the established target species. Therefore we sampled the plant species composition of the three donor sites (from where the hay originated) and the area surrounding the restoration site (from where target species might be dispersed to the restoration site). We found that most specialist species became established from the hay from the second to the sixth year, but the surrounding areas also provided additional propagule sources. We were also interested in the characteristics that make target species successful colonizers. Among the eight analysed functional traits, seed mass of the transferred species was the best predictor of the establishment of specialists, and we found that small-seeded species had an establishment advantage in the first years after restoration.

Our results suggest that hay transfer can be a suitable nature-based solution for local grassland restoration projects and its potential should be utilized especially in regions where suitable donor sites are present in sufficient quantity and quality. With this method, we can ensure the conservation management (cutting) of the donor site and can also support the development of the target vegetation at the restored site.

Successfully recovered grassland six years after the hay transfer. In the foreground, there are flowering specimens of the protected and endemic Centaurea sadleriana.

Effects of laundry washing on seed dispersal - our second germination experiment has started

In our recent study (Valkó et al. 2020 NeoBiota) we found that laundry washing is a major driver of the dispersal and germination efficiency of cloth-dispersed seeds. You can read about our previous study in this blog post. Now motivated by the interesting results of the first experiment we aim to dig deeper into this topic and started a new, way bigger germination experiment. Here we added a twist and use many types of detergents with different effect mechanisms and also three types of washing temperature.

The preparation of the experiment was a heroic job - many thanks to everybody, especially Kata, Ági and Réka. Just to illustrate the amount of work: seeds of 20 species were collected, counted and sewed into a total of 1680 fabric sacks, then after cold stratification, the seeds were washed in 21 different laundry cycles (poor washing machine, it was also a hero...). The germination experiment has been running for three weeks now and the results seem very interesting, so it worthed the efforts.

Please see below some pictures about the preparation and running of the experiment.

Seeds were put in these tiny fabric sacks, which were then closed and washed in a laundry treatment.

Seeds washed together with washnut (Sapindus mukorossi).

Despite the huge amount of work, we love this project 💚

Sample processing, all day, from early morning...

... till late night

Washed propagules of Cynoglossum officinale.

Washed propagules of Torilis arvensis.

Washed propagules of Bromus hordeaceus - my precious piece of art, finally I could arrange the propagules in a more or less regular pattern in the Petri dish

The samples in the plant growing chamber.

Silent night in the lab

Counting and removal of the germinated seeds

Germinated propagules of Hordeum hystrix

Germinated propagules of Dianthus pontederae

Germinated propagules of Bromus hordeaceus

Despite the many working hours, this research is still fun :)