ANDRÁS BÁLDI, Corresponding Member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Research Professor at the Centre for Ecological Research, held his inaugural lecture on 14 February 2023 in the Great Hall of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
Title: Biodiversity and ecosystem services: from fieldwork to policy

Biodiversity has declined over the past decades. Recognition and understanding the patterns and processes of ecosystems and thus halting their degradation is essential for human-wellbeing. One of the main reason of biodiversity loss is the transformation of original natural habitats leaving only small isolated patches of remnants in human-dominated landscapes. These patches of habitats are subject to the species-area relationship, one of the few laws of ecology. The proportion of interior and edge habitats is also decreasing. All these are reflected in the presence of species and individuals, but natural patterns and processes can be affected by human interference. Patches of natural habitats are surrounded by human-dominated land, mostly agricultural land which may still have significant biodiversity values. Fundamental questions remain to be answered, such as what is the impact of farming and landscape structure on biodiversity and the ecosystem services? Research results ensure essential information to nature-friendly management practices in order to help effective conservation of biodiversity. The next step towards practice is to integrate research results into policy. This step involves a number of processes and institutions in which researcher’s participation is a key.
András Báldi presented the existence of human influence overriding the species-area relationship, and the positive but species-specific effect of habitat edges on bird abundance and the negative effect of habitat edges on the survival of nestlings. Over many years, the biodiversity of many agricultural habitats has been studied, including plants, grasshoppers and related insects , ground beetles, bugs, cicadas, bees, wasps, birds, and has shown that the species richness of the natural habitat in Hungary is significantly higher than in other intensively farmed countries. To conserve this richness, context-dependent management – e.g. local habitat, landscape, taxon – is required. In their landscape-scale experiments launched in recent years, the most effective management options are investigated by creating wildflower plots and overplanting fallow land, from which both the farmer and biodiversity can benefit. Finally, he outlined how research results can be translated into policy and decision-making and what is the role of researchers in it at international level.
Photo: mta.hu/ Tamás Szigeti

World Wetlands Day is celebrated each year on 2nd February to raise awareness about wetlands. This day also marks the anniversary of the Convention on Wetlands, which was adopted as an international treaty in Ramsar, Iran, on this day in 1971. To mark this occasion, the Ministry of Agriculture organised a celebration event in Dömsöd on 2nd February 2023, jointly with the Szomor Eco-Farm and the Hungarian National Committee of the Ramsar Convention.
The Centre for Ecological Research was represented by Dr. Emil Boros, Senior Research Fellow of the CER Institute of Aquatic Ecology and member of the Hungarian National Committee of the Ramsar Convention. In a joint presentation with Dezső Szomor, – ecological farmer and head of Szomor Ecofarm (who is also a member of the Ramsar Committee), – he evaluated the reconstruction over the past 30 years of the Apaj alkaline soda wetland of international importance, which is part of the Kiskunság National Park and registered as a Ramsar site and presented the related LIFE Nature project.
Based on his decades of research the ecologist presented in detail the results of the 500 ha experimental wetland restoration project established and run by Szomor Ecofarm in the Lower Szúnyogi Meadow in the Apaj Basin.
“The essence of this scheme is to reconstruct the functioning of the floodplain wetland system of the ancient Danube valley plain in accordance with the current landscape conditions, where sustainability is ensured by the fish pond system connected to the water system and operated by Szomor Eco-farm. The conservation-ecological specificity of the water system is that the fishponds and natural wetlands fed by the Danube water are directly supplied with water through local gravity flow systems below the surface, which indirectly ensures the adequate quality and quantity of water supply for the alkaline soda wetlands. The Apaj-Puszta wetland restoration project is therefore an important reference site in the region for the restoration of alkaline soda wetland habitats, which are unique on a global scale. In addition to flooding, the Szomor Eco-farm is implementing the conservation management of the temporary alkaline soda wetland through extensive grazing of buffalo and Hungarian grey cattle,” said Emil Boros.

Other publications on this topic:

After a gap of nearly two decades, the first comprehensive summary volume on all invasive animal taxa in Hungary has been published. The publication is available (also in English) in the Rosalia Handbooks series of the Danube-Ipoly National Park Directorate.

Despite the fact that the spatial expansion of invasive alien animal species is now a major threat to our aquatic and forest ecosystems, there has been no book that would have started to put even a species lists together, let alone gather all the knowledge available from researchers and experts concerning different taxa. This enormous work was carried out by 36 specialists, experts in each taxonomic group. Several researchers from the Centre for Ecological Research have co-authored the volume, with Péter Borza co-authoring the chapter on Peracarida, and Zoltán Soltész, Zsolt László Garamszegi and Edina Török co-authoring the chapter on Diptera species.

In this volume, the authors present species that are primarily cause an ecological problem in their new habitat, but as the descriptions show, there are several species that do have a major or even catastrophic economic impact. The book contains detailed descriptions of the 118 species that have already occur in Hungary or will inevitably do so in the near future, as well as brief descriptions of 4 amphibian and 32 species of terrestrial snails. A general conclusion of the present volume is that our natural waters are especially vulnerable as more than half of the species dealt with within the book occur in aquatic habitats.

Photo: Imre Potyó (Chaetogammarus ischnus)

Source: Rosalia Handbooks 5. Invasive Animal Species in Hungary

András Báldi, research professor of the Centre for Ecological Research and a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, has been elected Head of the Organismic and Evolutionary Biology Section of the Life Sciences Division of the Academia Europaea, a leading European research community.
Founded in 1988, the Academia Europaea (AE) (European Academy of Sciences) has around 5,000 members, including 83 Nobel laureates. The AE’s objectives include promoting and disseminating the results of European research, fostering interdisciplinary and international research cooperation, and raising public awareness of scientific results.
“The Academia Europaea resembles the academies of the old days, the “learned societies”. It has a staff of just a few people, so every activity initiated and carried out by its members. A series of seminars, conferences and peer-reviewed papers are indicative of this. The Section of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology is one of the smallest, with 139 members. However, it has a total of eight distinguished Hungarian members from several institutions in the country” – told András Báldi to mta.hu.
András Báldi’s term of office is three years from 1 January 2023. He said that his election was partly due to his experience in leading international societies and partly to the fact that has practice in mediating between science and policy. The latter is also important because one of the main objectives of the section is to provide useful advice to EU decision-makers.
“To this end, my aim is to complement the membership by involving European leaders in highlighted research field,” he said. “In addition to professional excellence, we also take into account the need to strike the right balance between gender, countries and disciplines. In other words, it is not mechanistically the science metrics that matter, but whether the candidate excels in their particular situation.”
András Báldi said there is a sense that climate change and the crisis of biodiversity loss are increasing the weight of ecology, both in scientific research and in international scientific organisations.
He cited as an example the fact that the Global Risks report for the World Economic Forum in Davos included climate change and biodiversity loss among the six environmental problems that are estimated to be the greatest threats over the next 10 years. “A working group on environmental sustainability has also been set up within Academia Europaea.”

Source: mta.hu - Magyar akadémikus az Academia Europaea Organizmus- és Evolúcióbiológiai Szekciójának élén - 2023-01-24