Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Chu Wang, Linghao Li, Yuchun Yan, Yurong Cai, Dawei Xu, Xu Wang, Jinqiang Chen, Xiaoping Xin
Summary: The conversion of grassland into cropland led to significant decreases in soil organic carbon and total nitrogen contents, while total phosphorus content increased in deeper soil layers. Abandonment of cropland resulted in higher levels of soil organic carbon and total nitrogen compared to cropland, although not reaching levels of native grassland. Grassland had the highest nutrient contents and ratios, followed by abandoned land and then cropland.
AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENT
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Xu Liu, Siwen Feng, Hongyan Liu, Jue Ji
Summary: Research indicates that there has been a slight increase in woody vegetation cover in the eastern Eurasian steppe since 2000, primarily driven by climate warming. Grass recovery has been observed in the central region, influenced by slight warming and drying, while human disturbance has shown a more significant impact on this change than climate warming.
LAND DEGRADATION & DEVELOPMENT
(2021)
Review
Biodiversity Conservation
Scott R. Loss, Bruce H. Noden, Samuel D. Fuhlendorf
Summary: Vector-borne diseases are impacted by woody plant encroachment (WPE), which may increase disease transmission and distribution. Further research on the effects of WPE management on health risks associated with VBDs is crucial for making informed land management and policy decisions.
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Gabor Onodi, Miklos Kertesz, Attila Lengyel, Ildiko Pandi, Laszlo Somay, Katalin Szitar, Gyorgy Kroel-Dulay
Summary: The study found that the increase in juniper cover in the study area resulted in a sharp decline in plant species richness and a shift in species composition. Wildfire increased species richness in both grassland and juniper plots, with only temporary compositional responses in grasslands as juniper habitats reverted back to the grassland state.
APPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE
(2021)
Article
Ecology
Chetan Misher, Gargi Vats, Abi Tamim Vanak
Summary: Encroachment by woody invasive plants, particularly Prosopis juliflora, can significantly impact the rodent community in grassland ecosystems, with varying responses observed in different habitat types. Species richness and abundance of rodents were highest in restored grasslands and dense Prosopis thickets, but lowest in sparse Prosopis areas, indicating a potential U shaped response to Prosopis invasion. Ultimately, the effects of woody invasion on rodents depend on species characteristics and local environmental factors.
FRONTIERS IN ECOLOGY AND EVOLUTION
(2022)
Article
Agriculture, Multidisciplinary
Leonardo R. Ramirez, Ina Saeumel
Summary: This study explored the impact of land use change on the diversity of native forests in Uruguay. It found that the fragmentation of grasslands led to a decrease in woody species, while large interconnected native forests in a landscape dominated by grasslands harbored a high diversity of species. The history of surrounding landscapes played a crucial role in determining the diversity of native forests.
AGRICULTURE ECOSYSTEMS & ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Horia G. Olariu, Lonesome Malambo, Sorin C. Popescu, Clifton Virgil, Bradford P. Wilcox
Summary: This study evaluated the ability of very high resolution drone imagery to accurately map woody plant species encroaching on semiarid grasslands. The findings showed that drone imagery can provide highly accurate classifications of woody plant species, surpassing the results achieved by aerial and drone imagery using hyperspectral sensors in more diverse landscapes.
Article
Plant Sciences
Eva Kabas, Snezana Vukojicic, Svetlana Acic, Dmitar Lakusic
Summary: Despite previous research on dry grasslands on ultramafic substrates, there is still a knowledge gap in understanding the initial stages of vegetation. This study focused on Stipa-dominated dry grasslands in Serbia and Kosovo, identifying four new associations and providing insights into their classification within the broader Balkan dry grassland vegetation.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Lubing Jiang, Lu Wu, Hongyan Liu, Wenqi He, Liang Shi, Chongyang Xu, Changlin Xiang
Summary: Grassland degradation often leads to soil coarsening, which affects water and nutrient uptake by plant roots. Studying the impacts of soil coarsening on different root types is crucial for grassland restoration. This study showed that fibrous-rooted species performed better in sandy soil, while tap-rooted species were more sensitive to drought in loamy soil. Soil coarsening can alter community composition and drought resistance, which should be considered in future climate changes.
ECOLOGICAL INDICATORS
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Joseph D. M. White, Nicola Stevens, Jolene T. Fisher, Sally Archibald, Chevonne Reynolds
Summary: Woody-plant encroachment, a consequence of land degradation, has negative impacts on livelihoods. Research in South Africa shows that municipalities with low income and high reliance on ecosystem services are most affected by woody-plant encroachment. This phenomenon reinforces the poverty trap and leads to a decrease in ecosystem services.
Article
Forestry
Rory C. O'Connor, Dana M. Blumenthal, Troy W. Ocheltree, Jesse B. Nippert
Summary: This study investigates the potential of elevated CO2 concentration to facilitate the growth of expanding woody plant species in rangelands. The results show that increased CO2 levels enhance photosynthetic rates, water-use efficiencies and leaf starch concentrations in multiple woody species. Additionally, elevated CO2 mitigates the physiological effects of chronic water stress on the juvenile plants, indicating a potential alleviation of abiotic limitations to woody plant establishment in rangelands.
Article
Ecology
Peifeng Xiong, Zhifei Chen, Junjie Zhou, Shuaibin Lai, Chunxia Jian, Zhi Wang, Bingcheng Xu
Summary: The study found that canopy and litter storage capacities increased with the abandonment time of the grassland. Dominant species type and aboveground biomass had a significant impact on canopy storage capacity, while there was no significant correlation between species diversity and storage capacity indexes.
Article
Ecology
Rachel M. Keen, Jesse B. Nippert, Pamela L. Sullivan, Zak Ratajczak, Brynn Ritchey, Kimberly O'Keefe, Walter K. Dodds
Summary: Woody encroachment has impacted grassland ecohydrology worldwide. In a tallgrass prairie in Kansas, USA, stream discharge has declined despite an increase in precipitation. Riparian vegetation, particularly woody species, primarily use deep soil water, leading to observed declines in stream flow.
Article
Ecology
Orsolya Valko, Balazs Deak, Peter Torok, Katalin Toth, Reka Kiss, Andras Kelemen, Tamas Miglecz, Judit Sonkoly, Bela Tothmeresz
Summary: Planting grasses can help establish closed perennial vegetation quickly, but creating diverse and natural-like grasslands is challenging. Understanding seed bank changes and vegetation dynamics is crucial for effective grassland restoration management. Long-term management is necessary for controlling weed emergence from dense seed banks in restored grasslands.
RESTORATION ECOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Plant Sciences
Piet Monegi, Ntuthuko Raphael Mkhize, Julius Tlou Tjelele, David Ward, Zivanai Tsvuura
Summary: This study investigated the effects of different tree removal treatments and herbicide application on the resprouting ability and vigour of 12 woody plant species. The results showed that woody plants are more likely to resprout and survive as juveniles than as adults, and only a few species were affected by the herbicide. This information is important for land users in southern African savannas.
Article
Ecology
Csaba Tolgyesi, Csaba Vadasz, Robert Kun, Andras Istvan Csatho, Zoltan Batori, Alida Habenczyus, Laszlo Erdos, Peter Torok
Summary: Grassland restoration globally is seeing progress in addressing biodiversity loss and ecosystem service depletion. The choice of post-restoration management plays a crucial role in the long-term community reassembly, potentially having a comparable impact to the restoration method chosen. Selecting an optimal post-restoration management strategy is essential for ensuring successful restoration outcomes in grasslands.
ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Csaba Tolgyesi, Attila Torma, Zoltan Batori, Jelena Seat, Milos Popovic, Robert Galle, Nikolett Galle-Szpisjak, Laszlo Erdos, Tamas Vinko, Andras Kelemen, Peter Torok
Summary: Drainage canals, previously considered detrimental to nature conservation, have been found to harbor high biodiversity and should be recognized as important novel ecosystems with conservation value. Agricultural canals support remarkable species richness, especially for native species, but may also serve as important dispersal corridors for non-native invasive plants. Canal size has little effect on biodiversity, but habitat stress, such as sandiness and salinity, plays a significant role in determining the added value of canals to landscape-wide biodiversity.
JOURNAL OF APPLIED ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Ecology
Csaba Tolgyesi, Elise Buisson, Aveliina Helm, Vicky M. Temperton, Peter Torok
Summary: While tree planting is a common nature-based solution for addressing climate change, it has serious drawbacks in many regions. Grasslands, as natural vegetation, may support higher biodiversity and a safer carbon stock than plantations and forests, suggesting that restoring native vegetation may be a more effective alternative to tree planting.
RESTORATION ECOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Judit Sonkoly, Attila Takacs, V. Attila Molnar, Peter Torok
Summary: Although long-distance dispersal events are rare, they play a disproportionately important role in driving large-scale ecological processes. Our study focused on the dispersal of viable seeds through potting substrates and found that they can disperse large quantities of seeds of different plant species over long distances.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Article
Plant Sciences
Laszlo Erdos, Khanh Vu Ho, Zoltan Batori, Gyorgy Kroel-Dulay, Gabor Onodi, Csaba Tolgyesi, Peter Torok, Attila Lengyel
Summary: Ecosystems with forest and grassland patches as alternative stable states contain various habitats aligned along a vegetation cover gradient, showing different patterns of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity. Taxonomic diversity peaks in the middle of the gradient, functional diversity is high in woody habitats but lower in grassland, and phylogenetic diversity varies depending on the evolutionary age of the habitats. The community assembly in grasslands may be dominated by environmental filtering, while competition may be decisive in woody habitats.
JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Plant Sciences
Gergely Kovacsics-Vari, Judit Sonkoly, Katalin Toth, Andrea McIntosh-Buday, Patricia Diaz Cando, Viktoria Toro-Szijgyarto, Nora Balogh, Luis Roberto Guallichico Suntaxi, Francis David Espinoza Ami, Laszlo Demeter, Bela Tothmeresz, Peter Torok
Summary: By analysing cattle-and sheep-grazed sand grasslands in the Nyirseg region, East Hungary, the study aimed to determine the effects of livestock type and grazing intensity on vegetation characteristics. The results showed that livestock type did not have a significant independent effect on the studied characteristics, but the interaction between livestock type and grazing intensity did have an impact. It was concluded that careful adjustment of grazing intensity and long-term experiments studying different livestock and habitat types are essential for the management of sand grasslands.
APPLIED VEGETATION SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Forestry
Khanh Vu Ho, Gyorgy Kroel-Dulay, Csaba Tolgyesi, Zoltan Batori, Eszter Tanacs, Miklos Kertesz, Peter Torok, Laszlo Erdos
Summary: This study investigated the differences in species composition and ecological value between natural poplar forests and three common types of tree plantations in central Hungary. The results showed that natural poplar forests had the highest species richness and diversity and the highest ecological and conservation value compared to the plantations. The study suggests that conservation and restoration efforts should prioritize the protection of natural poplar forests.
FOREST ECOLOGY AND MANAGEMENT
(2023)
Article
Agronomy
Henrietta Bak, Reka Fekete, Peter Torok, Kristof Suveges, V. Attila Molnar
Summary: Garlic pennycress (Mummenhoffia alliacea) is a rare weed protected in Hungary, and three new sites of this species were discovered in 2021. A study was conducted to investigate the effects of habitat management practices on seed mass and germination. Late-spring mowing was found to be optimal for the reproduction of M. alliacea, and traditional mowing methods were more beneficial for the species' survival compared to modern lawnmowers. The highest observed NaCl concentration for germination was 0.75 m/m%, indicating that anthropogenic habitats could be suitable for the species.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Viktoria Toro-Szijgyarto, Nora Balogh, Tamas Henn, Andrea McIntosh-Buday, Judit Sonkoly, Attila Takacs, Gergely Kovacsics-Vari, Patricia Diaz Cando, V. Attila Molnar, Gabor Matus, Balazs Teleki, Kristof Suveges, Balazs A. Lukacs, Adam Lovas-Kiss, Bela Tothmeresz, Edina Toth, Katalin Toth, Peter Torok
Summary: Seed weight is an important and measurable physical characteristic of plant seeds, influencing crucial ecological processes. It affects dispersal, predation, germination, growth, and survival of seedlings. Providing trait data for species missing from international databases is essential for advancing our understanding of plant communities and ecosystems in the face of global climate change and biodiversity loss.
Article
Marine & Freshwater Biology
Eniko T-Krasznai, Viktoria B-Beres, Verona Lerf, Gabor Varbiro, Andras Abonyi, Peter Torok, Gabor Borics
Summary: The distribution of phytoplankton in lakes is largely determined by the mixing regime, the spatial distribution of nutrients, and light. Linear stratification, representing a continuous and gradual decrease in water temperature with depth, was investigated to understand its impact on the vertical distribution of phytoplankton. The study found that multiple biomass peaks of different phytoplankton functional groups could develop in response to the strong linear stratification of the water column. Light irradiance did not influence the vertical distribution of biomass and taxonomic richness, but the depth of the euphotic zone played a role in determining the number of distinct biomass peaks.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Judit Sonkoly, Edina Toth, Nora Balogh, Lajos Balogh, Denes Bartha, Kinga Csendesne Bata, Zoltan Batori, Nora Bekefi, Zoltan Botta-Dukat, Janos Boloni, Aniko Csecserits, Janos Csiky, Peter Csontos, Istvan Dancza, Balazs Deak, Zoltan Konstantin Dobolyi, Anna E-Vojtko, Ferenc Gyulai, Alida Anna Habenczyus, Tamas Henn, Ferenc Horvath, Maria Hohn, Gusztav Jakab, Andras Kelemen, Gergely Kiraly, Szabolcs Kis, Gergely Kovacsics-Vari, Andras Kun, Eva Lehoczky, Attila Lengyel, Barbara Lhotsky, Viktor Loki, Balazs Andras Lukacs, Gabor Matus, Andrea McIntosh-Buday, Attila Mesterhazy, Tamas Miglecz, V. Attila Molnar, Zsolt Molnar, Tamas Morschhauser, Laszlo Papp, Patricia Posa, Tamas Redei, David Schmidt, Ferenc Szmorad, Attila Takacs, Julia Tamas, Viktor Tiborcz, Csaba Tolgyesi, Katalin Toth, Bela Tothmeresz, Orsolya Valko, Viktor Virok, Tamas Wirth, Peter Torok
Summary: The existing plant trait databases have limited applicability for studying the flora and vegetation of Eastern and Central Europe due to their limited geographical data coverage and incorporation of records from regions with different climatic conditions. To address this issue, PADAPT, a regional dataset of plant traits for the Pannonian region, has been compiled, providing data on 54 traits and attributes of plant species in the region.
Article
Biodiversity Conservation
Hajnalka Malik-Roffa, David Tozser, Bela Tothmeresz, Tibor Magura
Summary: Automated video tracking of experimental organisms is crucial for reliable quantitative analyses in behavioral ecology and other disciplines. BugTracker, a Python-based software, effectively addresses the limitations of existing tracking software by utilizing computer vision technologies. It enables reliable tracking of unmarked organisms under varying lighting conditions, providing accurate measurements of their movements. BugTracker is a user-friendly and compatible tracking software for Windows, Linux, and MacOS.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Csaba Tolgyesi, Alida Anna Habenczyus, Andras Kelemen, Peter Torok, Orsolya Valko, Balazs Deak, Laszlo Erdos, Benedek Toth, Nandor Csikos, Zoltan Batori
Summary: Tree planting is a widely used nature-based solution for mitigating climate change. However, it can have adverse effects in naturally open biomes, such as water shortage due to increased evapotranspiration. This study assessed how soil texture affects the trade-off between tree cover and water balance in the forest-steppe biome.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Ecology
Emma Ladouceur, Nancy Shackelford, Karma Bouazza, Lars Brudvig, Anna Bucharova, Timo Conradi, Todd E. Erickson, Magda Garbowski, Kelly Garvy, W. Stanley Harpole, Holly P. Jones, Tiffany Knight, Mlungele M. Nsikani, Gustavo Paterno, Katharine Suding, Vicky M. Temperton, Peter Torok, Daniel E. Winkler, Jonathan M. Chase
Summary: The Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to provide the means and incentives for upscaling restoration efforts worldwide. Effective ecological restoration requires knowledge and data sharing to inform synthesis for robust restoration science. Sharing species-level, fine-scale ecological community data can help improve restoration outcomes and increase predictive capacity. Integrated data, analysis, and knowledge sharing can support shared success in restoration ecology.
ECOLOGICAL SOLUTIONS AND EVIDENCE
(2022)
