Conference organization: the 18th Eurasian Grassland Conference

It is our pleasure to announce that our research group organizes the 18th Eurasian Grassland Conference in Szarvas, Hungary.

The registration is now open at https://www.egc2023.hu/.

The four-day-long conference (25-28 September 2023) will be followed by an optional post-conference excursion (29 September – 1 October 2023).

Key dates:

Deadline for IAVS travel grant application: 31 May  2023
Deadline for registration: 30 June 2023
Deadline for abstract submission: 30 June 2023

All details can be found on the homepage (https://www.egc2023.hu/).

The conference is organized by Balázs Deák, Orsolya Valkó and András Kelemen and our research group (Centre for Ecological Research) and the Körös-Maros National Park Directorate. The organizers are looking forward to meeting many EDGG members in the interesting scientific sessions and show the flora, fauna, natural beauties and conservation challenges related to the diverse grassland habitats of the Hungarian Great Plain during the mid-conference and post-conference excursions.

Any questions related to the conference can be addressed to the organizers (organizers.egc2023@gmail.com).

The local organizing committee in a group meeting in Szarvas.

Understanding the attitude and habits of drivers can help mitigating animal-vehicle collisions - Our new paper in Journal of Environmental Management

Our new paper by Sándor Borza and Laura Godó has recently been accepted in Journal of Environmental Management. 

Borza, S. & Godó, L., Valkó, O., Végvári, Z., Deák B. (2023): Better safe than sorry – Understanding the attitude and habits of drivers can help mitigating animal-vehicle collisions. Journal of Environmental Management 339: 117917. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2023.117917 [IF2021: 8.910]

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

One of the most important ecological impacts of roads is the fragmentation of natural habitats, which makes collisions with vehicles a significant threat to wildlife. The aim of our research was to understand the human factors behind animal-vehicle collisions through a large sample questionnaire survey. A total of 2,123 people completed the questionnaire, which is an outstanding number. Our results show that almost half of all drivers have had at least one collision with an animal. The graphical abstract below summarises the main message of the article.

The graph shows how many animals from each group respondents have hit in their lifetime. The colours mean: green - not hit; grey - can't remember if hit; yellow - hit once; red - hit more than once. It can be seen that there is a significant proportion of grey area for reptiles, amphibians, and small mammals, meaning that many people did not remember or were not sure whether they had hit an animal in that category. This is because members of these groups are small, move at ground level and often move at night, even in rainy weather. These all make detection difficult. Furthermore, because they do not pose a serious road safety risk or cause damage to the vehicle, they are more forgettable when hit, as opposed to, for example, a songbird loudly hitting the windscreen or a pet animal that may be more memorable if hit because of the emotional attachment.

We found that male drivers, those who drive long distances per year, and those who use secondary roads most often and drive large vehicles such as buses or trucks, are more likely to be involved in collisions with animals during their lifetime. Previous studies have shown that men and women drive differently and have very different attitudes to rules and restrictions in many ways, which affects the number of accidents, including animal-vehicle collisions. Unfortunately, it can be said that if you travel a lot, sooner or later you will hit an animal. With regard to road types, while primary roads are mostly protected by fences and  wildlife crossings, this is not the case for secondary roads. However, it is worth noting that fences do not provide 100% protection, but can give people a false sense of security. Even on sections protected by fences, you should always be aware of animals wandering onto the road! In addition to having a larger impact surface, large vehicles are much less manoeuvrable safely to avoid a collision. These two factors together significantly increase the likelihood of an animal being hit.

Drivers' attitudes towards the importance of nature conservation and road safety in relation to animal-vehicle collisions were significantly influenced by whether they had ever been involved in a hit-and-run accident in their lives. Our results showed that people were sensitised by the sight of animals being hit and felt it was important to reduce the number of hits. A very large number of drivers, 797 in total, wrote a list of things they thought were useful in preventing collisions in their own words. Most of them suggested the installation of physical protection (fences and wildlife barriers).

A practical tip: if it is impossible to avoid a collision, the safest thing to do is to brake and keep the vehicle straight, rather than catching the steering wheel. Unfortunately, the natural avoidance mechanism makes this difficult to do, but it is not impossible and it makes a big difference to get out of the incident unscathed.

Zólyomi Award to Hungarian vegetation ecologists

On the ceremony of the 'Zólyomi Bálintné Barna Piroska' award, excellent Hungarian vegetation ecologists received recognition at the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, on 14th March. This years awardees were Balázs Deák, Attila Takács, and Csaba Tölgyesi. Congratulations to all of them!

The awardees: Attila Takács, Balázs Deák, Csaba Tölgyesi

 

Environmental heterogeneity increases the conservation value of karst dolines - Our new paper in Science of the Total Environment

Our new paper, about the biodiversity-environmental heterogeneity relationships in karst landscapes by Zoltán Bátori has recently been published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

The citation of the paper:

Bátori, Z., Valkó, O., Vojtkó, A., Tölgyesi, C., Farkas, T., Frei, K., Hábenczyus, A.A., Tóth, Á., Li, G., Rádai, Z., Dulai, S., Barta, K., Erdős, L., Deák, B. (2023): Environmental heterogeneity increases the conservation value of small natural features in karst landscapes. Science of the Total Environment 872: 162120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.162120  [IF2021: 10.753]

The paper is open access and can be freely downloaded from the journal homepage (please click here).

In the summer of 2021, we joined the research project of Zoltán Bátori and sampled the vegetation of karst dolines in the Bükk-plateau in North-Hungary. The study site is a fascinating place with beautiful landscape, and outstandingly species-rich vegetation. It was a great pleasure to work in this nice environment and in a very good company :)

We investigated the relationship between the environmental parameters and vegetation composition of the dolines. Thes are small but very heterogeneous natural features, which harbour various micro-habitats in the north-, east-, south- and west-facing slopes and doline bottom, which are all different from the plain grasslands in terms of species composition, soil parameters and microclimatic conditions. Our results showed that thanks to this high environmental heterogeneity, the dolines provide suitable habitat conditions for species with various ecological requirements, thus, these small natural features act as biodiversity hotspots in the landscape. Our favourite landmarks, 'kurgans' (ancient steppic burial mounds) in the plain regions have similar ecological functions (we wrote about this topic in this blog post).

Abstract

Local biodiversity hotspots are often located within regions where extreme and variable environmental – e.g., climatic and soil – conditions occur. These areas are conservation priorities. Although environmental heterogeneity is recognised as an important determinant of biodiversity, studies focusing on the effects of multiple environmental heterogeneity components in the same ecosystem are scarce. Here we investigate how topography and related microclimatic variables and soil properties may influence the biodiversity and conservation value of karst landscapes. Karst landscapes of the world contain millions of dolines (i.e. bowl- or funnel-shaped depressions) that may function as ‘small natural features’ with a disproportionately large role in maintaining biodiversity relative to their size. We assessed the diversity of microclimates, soils and vegetation and their relationships in six microhabitats (south-facing slopes, east-facing slopes, west-facing slopes, north-facing slopes and bottoms of dolines, and the adjacent plateau) for nine large dolines in a grassland ecosystem. Although there were remarkable differences among the conservation value of these microhabitats (e.g., representation of different species groups, presence of ‘climate relicts’), each microhabitat had an important role in maintaining species that are rare or absent in other microhabitats in the landscape. We found that the studied dolines exhibited highly variable environmental conditions and promoted a high diversity of vegetation types with unique species composition, contributing to the topographic, climatic, soil, vegetation and land cover heterogeneity of karst landscapes. Therefore, our findings highlight that dolines may function as local biodiversity hotspots and have a crucial conservation importance. As dolines are widespread topographic features in many karst landscapes throughout the world, our results could be directly applied to other regions as well. An integrated approach is urgently needed to provide guidelines for landscape management, promoting the retention of the microhabitat diversity of small natural features for species vulnerable to climate change and/or various disturbances.

EASAC Regenerative Agriculture report - Policy roundtable in Brussels

The 44th report of the European Academies Science Advisory Council (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. We wrote an earlier blog post about the report, which you can read here.

Last week there was a very interesting and successful discussion event related to the Regenerative Agriculture report in Brussels, in the Library of the European Parliament. Thomas Elmqvist and Orsolya Valkó presented the main results of the report, and the presentation was followed by a lively and thought-provoking discussion. The full event was recorded and the video is available here.

 

Ecosystem engineering by blind mole rats in sandy grasslands - our new paper in PeerJ

Our new paper about the ecosystem engineering effect of Lesser blind mole rats has recently been published in PeerJ.

The paper is open access and can be freely downloaded from the journal website (please click here). A new interesting feature that authors can opt-in to publish the whole peer review history, so that the review process is transparent to anyone who is interested. The peer review history of the paper can be found here.

Valkó, O., Kelemen, A., Kiss, O., Deák, B. (2022): Patch and matrix characteristics determine the outcome of ecosystem engineering by mole rats in dry grasslands. PeerJ 10: e14582. https://doi-org/10.7717/peerj.14582 [IF2021: 3.061]

 

Strictly protected pasque flower (Pulsatilla flavescens) growing on the mound of the strictly protected blind mole rat (Nannospalax (leucodon) transsylvanicus).

 

Summary of the paper

Background: Burrowing mammals are important ecosystem engineers, especially in open ecosystems where they create patches that differ from the surrounding matrix in their structure or ecosystem functions.

Methods: We evaluated the fine-scale effects of a subterranean ecosystem engineer, the Lesser blind mole rat on the vegetation composition of sandy dry grasslands in Hungary. In this model system we tested whether the characteristics of the patch (mound size) and the matrix (total vegetation cover in the undisturbed grassland) influence the structural and functional contrasts between the mounds and the undisturbed grasslands. We sampled the vegetation of 80 mounds and 80 undisturbed grassland plots in four sites, where we recorded the total vegetation cover, and the occurrence and cover of each vascular plant species. We used two proxies to characterise the patches (mounds) and the matrix (undisturbed grassland): we measured the perimeter of the mounds and estimated the total vegetation cover of the undisturbed grasslands. First, we compared the vegetation characteristics of the mounds and the surrounding grasslands with general linear models. Second, we characterised the contrasts between the mounds and the undisturbed grassland by relative response indices (RRIs) of the vegetation characteristics studied in the first step.

Results: Species composition of the vegetation of the mounds and undisturbed grasslands was well separated in three out of the four study sites. Mounds were characterised by lower vegetation cover, lower cover of perennial graminoids, and higher diversity, and evenness compared to undisturbed grasslands. The contrast in vegetation cover between mounds and undisturbed grasslands increased with
decreasing patch size. Increasing vegetation cover in the matrix grasslands increased the contrasts between the mounds and undisturbed grasslands in terms of total cover, perennial graminoid cover, diversity, and evenness. Our results suggest that mole rat mounds provide improved establishment conditions for subordinate species, because they are larger than other types of natural gaps and are characterised by less intense belowground competition. The ecosystem engineering effect, i.e., the contrast between the patches and the matrix was the largest in the more closed grasslands.

Co-seeding of grasses and forbs supports restoration: our new paper in Scientific Reports

Our new paper by Réka Kiss about our experiment testing priority effects in grassland restoration has recently been published in Scientific Reports.

The paper is open access and can be downloaded from the journal homepage (please click here).

Kiss, R., Deák, B., Tóth, K., Lukács, K., Rádai, Z., Kelemen, A., Miglécz, T., Tóth, Á., Godó, L. & Valkó, O. (2022): Co-seeding grasses and forbs supports restoration of species-rich grasslands and improves weed control in ex-arable land. Scientific Reports 12: 21239. https://doi-org/10.1038/s41598-022-25837-4 

Our aim was to test whether the timing of seed sowing has an effect on grassland recovery and to test how can we support the successful implementation of grassland restoration projects. Choosing the proper timing of seed sowing and the optimal amount and species composition of the sown seed mixtures are very important for maximising restoration success and saving costs.  The matrix of seed mixtures are generally the grass seeds, which have an important role in weed suppression. In large-scale restoration projects, it is not always possible to compose and use a diverse seed mixture in the entire area; thus, they often use low diversity grass seed mixtures. On the one hand, seed sowing of grasses leads to a rapid and predictable vegetation development, and we can expect a species-poor grass-dominated vegetation two or three years after seed sowing. On the other hand, increasing the diversity of these species-poor sown grasslands requires novel methods and a lot of extra work in the future.

In our project we sowed grass (Festuca pseudovina) seeds in 2014 and a diverse seed mixture (containing 20 forb species) in different combinations (together with the grass seeds, and 1, 2 and 3 years later). We studied the species composition of the developed communities and evaluated which solution is the best in terms of weed suppression.

Our results clearly showed that the best solution is sowing the diverse seed mixture together with the grass seeds. This treatment resulted in the most diverse vegetation, the lowest level of weed encroachment and the highest number of established target species. In large restoration sites, which are embedded in an agricultural landscape, the spontaneous establishment of target species is very unlikely, given their impoverished seed banks and the lack of propagule sources. In such areas, active introduction of target species is inevitable for restoring species-rich grasslands. Our results suggest that it is a much more practical and cost-effective solution to sow the diverse seed mixture together with the grass seeds, at the very first stage of grassland restoration.

Abstract

Sowing is widely used for the restoration of species-rich grasslands but still there are knowledge gaps regarding the most suitable application of different seed mixtures. We tested the effect of seed mixtures application timing on the establishment of sown forbs and weed control. 36 experimental plots with nine sowing treatments were established in an abandoned cropland in Hungary. Grass seeds, diverse forb seed mixture and the combination of the two were applied: diverse forb mixture was sown simultaneously or 1, 2 or 3 years after grass sowing, in plots sown previously with grass or in empty plots (fallows). All sowing treatments supported the rapid establishment of the sown species in large cover and hampered weed encroachment. Forbs performed better when sown into fallows than in grass-matrix and forbs establishment was worse in older fallows than in younger ones. Grasses expressed a strong priority effect, especially when forbs were sown at least two years later than grasses. We also investigated the relation between seed germinability, weather parameters and establishment success. Germination rate in the greenhouse could not predict the establishment success of forbs in the field and showed great differences between years, hence we recommend sowing target forbs in multiple years.