A new review led by researchers at the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research provides the most comprehensive overview to date of urban ponds and their ecological functions. In this work, the authors reveal that even the smallest and most overlooked types – garden ponds – can play surprisingly important roles in maintaining urban biodiversity and ecosystem services, at the same time, contributing to potential disservices.
In the article published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Water, one of the highest-ranked journals in its field, the researchers synthesise findings from more than 200 scientific studies. For the first time, they clearly distinguish between the ecosystem role of public urban ponds (such as park or stormwater ponds) and ponds hidden on private properties, garden ponds.
Although garden ponds are often only a few square meters in size, collectively they can form dense aquatic habitat networks within cities – and in some areas, they may represent the only available freshwater habitats for many species. “Most people think of garden ponds – and even larger park ponds – as purely ornamental,” says Dr. Zsófia Horváth, lead author of the study. “But if you add up all those tiny ponds scattered across a city, they form a vast hidden network that provides shelter and food for frogs, insects, and even bats. They are small, but together they matter enormously.”
The review also highlights that urban ponds are double-edged ecosystems: while they provide important ecosystem services such as supporting pollinators, microclimate regulation, and recreation, they can also contribute to ecosystem disservices when mismanaged. These include facilitating the spread of invasive species, increasing mosquito populations, and causing eutrophication-related problems, such as unpleasant odours and elevated greenhouse gas emissions.
Importantly, the authors emphasize that the ecological functioning of garden ponds remains far less understood than that of larger ponds usually situated in publicly accessible areas – both in terms of their services and their potential disservices. Although they likely exist in vast numbers globally, we still know very little about their regional occurrence and how similar or different their roles are from other urban ponds in supporting biodiversity or posing ecological risks.
“Urban ponds are not without problems,” Dr. Horváth adds. “If poorly managed, they can become ecological traps, but with proper care, they can also serve as key refuges for biodiversity and act as multi-functional ecosystems providing important ecosystem services.”
Despite the existence of millions of garden ponds worldwide, their ecological roles and risks remain poorly understood, with most studies to date coming from the United Kingdom. The authors call for citizen science initiatives and urban planning strategies that formally integrate privately owned ponds into the blue-green infrastructure of cities and promote responsible management by educational activities.
“Urban sustainability begins in our backyards,” Dr. Horváth concludes. “Recognizing the ecological importance of garden ponds could fundamentally change how we think about urban nature conservation.”
The study concludes that even the smallest water patches can hold disproportionately high ecological value – a finding that could reshape how cities approach biodiversity and sustainability in the era of climate change.
Animal farming is not only a key driver of rural landscapes and economy but also strongly influences ecosystem processes. In recent decades, traditional management practices have largely shifted toward modern industrialized systems, altering habitats and influencing the abundance and distribution of many species. A new study published in Landscape Ecology shows that livestock farms may also provide favourable conditions for bats.
The research was led by Kriszta Lilla Szabadi (Institute of Evolution) and Sándor Zsebők (Institute of Ecology and Botany), researchers at two different institutes of the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research. They carried out passive acoustic monitoring at 199 sampling points across Hungary, including 92 points from 35 livestock farms.
The objectives of the study were to (1) identify the bat species occurring on livestock farms, (2) compare bat activity at farms with other habitats—including cropland, grassland, oak and pine forests, as well as roads and green areas within settlements—and (3) assess how farm characteristics (such as livestock species and herd size) and surrounding landscape composition influence bat activity.
Fotó: Kriszta Szabadi
The most frequent bats detected on livestock farms were urban-adapted species such as the noctule bats (Nyctalus spp.) and pipistrelles (Pipistrellus kuhlii, P. pipistrellus, and P. pygmaeus), recorded at more than two-thirds of the farms. Interestingly, strictly protected forest specialists such as Barbastella barbastellus and other forest dwelling Myotis species also occurred on farms, indicating that these habitats provide foraging opportunities for a wide range of species.
The study found that the activity of several bat species and that overall bat activity was higher on livestock farms than in many other habitats although not higher than along roads or in urban green areas. This suggests that farms share certain similarities with urban environments, a pattern likely reinforced by their proximity to settlements.
Farm characteristics also mattered: P. kuhlii were significantly more active on cattle farms than on horse farms. This may reflect differences in housing and manure management, as horse stables tend to be cleaner, more closed, and more modern. Landscape context played an additional role. The proportion of green areas within the surrounding artificial environment was positively related to noctule bat activity, suggesting that vegetation patches within or near farms enhance foraging and roosting opportunities and help bats to navigate.
Beyond their ecological importance, bats may also provide ecosystem services to farms. A single individual can consume its body weight in insects per night, including hundreds of mosquitoes and other insects. By suppressing insect populations, bats may help reduce livestock stress and disease risks. However, the study also underlines the need for bat-friendly farming practices: maintaining vegetation corridors, preserving potential roosts, and minimizing risks from domestic predators such as cats are all essential.
This research emphasizes that the integration of ecological knowledge into farming practices can strengthen both agricultural sustainability and wildlife conservation.
Reference: Szabadi K. L., Kurali A., Estók P., Görföl T., Froidevaux J. S. P., & Zsebők S. (2025). Bats in livestock farms—effects of farm characteristics and landscape composition on bat activity. Landscape Ecology, 40:179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-025-02196-9
The ecological role of Hungarian grasslands is very diverse: they are important in maintaining biodiversity, but they also play a significant role in agricultural production, water retention, and soil protection. However, they also have a function that is perhaps not known to everyone: they have a significant carbon sequestration capacity. Although this carbon sequestration capacity is smaller than the carbon sequestration of forests per unit area, it is still very significant, especially because grasslands primarily store the sequestered carbon stock not in plant biomass, but in the organic matter content of the soil, and moreover, over a fairly long term.
How long the carbon stored in the soil is stored depends on many factors. One of the most important of these is the activity of the soil microflora, but equally important is the biological activity of the plants in the soil. On the one hand, plants emit significant amounts of CO2 through their roots, and on the other hand, they provide organic matter to microorganisms directly attached to their roots or living in the environment of the roots (rhizosphere), thus increasing the rate of decomposition processes and the resulting CO2 emissions. Soil respiration is made up of these main components which is one of the most significant element of the carbon cycle of ecological systems.
In a research conducted by the MATE and the Centre for ecological research, we examined the functioning of a dry pasture in Kiskunság, primarily the relationship between CO2 taken up during photosynthesis and released through the soil. We were curious about which carbon source primarily determines the amount of carbon released from the soil, the CO2 stored in the organic matter content of the soil, or the CO2 which was “freshly” taken up by plants? Between 2012 and 2020, measurements were taken a total of 23 times at 78 permanent points. The special feature of the area – in addition to being a highly protected by the Kiskunság National Park – is that a measuring station (eddy-covariance micro meteorological station) has been operating here since 2002, which measures the CO2 and water vapor currents between the surface and the atmosphere, making it suitable for measuring the amount of carbon taken up through photosynthesis.
The results of the research were somewhat surprising, as they showed that the amount of carbon actually taken up and released into the soil by plants determined the extent of soil biological activity a much greater extent than the amount of carbon stored in the soil, despite the fact that the carbon content varied in a very wide range (1.1-14%) in the sample area. The fact that photosynthetic CO2 uptake can be just as decisive factor in soil carbon turnover and CO2 emission as the main environmental factors (temperature, soil moisture) was little known until now and may be important information for biogeochemical models. The negligible role of soil carbon content may be explained by the microbial usability of different forms of the carbon pool, as there are fractions that are more and less easily usable by microbes, the amount of which is determined by the physical structure of the soil.
Péter Koncz measures soil respiration
This knowledge is extremely important for understanding the functioning of carbon turnover, especially in view of the accelerating climate change. If the soil and biomass breathe out more CO2 than they absorb then carbon is being lost from the ecosystem. Preserving and maintaining the functions of grasslands is important from environmental, nature conservational and agricultural aspects.
HUN-REN researchers and collaborators use genetic “swaps” to recalibrate the fungal tree of life, revealing a deep history that predates the first land plants.
The Five Paths to a Complex World
On a planet once dominated by single-celled organisms, a revolutionary change occurred not once, but at least five separate times: the evolution of complex multicellular life. This was not simply a matter of cells clumping together; it was the dawn of organisms where cells took on specialized jobs and were organized into distinct tissues and organs, much like in our own bodies. This leap required sophisticated new tools, including highly developed mechanisms for cells to adhere to one another and intricate systems for them to communicate across the organism. This profound evolutionary innovation arose independently in five major groups: animals, land plants, fungi, and two distinct lineages of algae (red and brown algae).1 Understanding when each of these groups emerged is fundamental to piecing together the history of life on Earth.
A Timeline Written in Stone
For most of these groups, the fossil record acts as a geological calendar, providing anchor points in deep time. Based on this evidence, a chronological picture of life’s complexity emerges.
Group
Oldest Fossil Evidence
Age
Location & Significance
Red Algae
Rafatazmia & Ramathallus
~1.6 billion years ago
India. Currently the earliest known complex multicellular life, these fossils significantly push back the timeline for eukaryotes.
Animals
Sponge-like fossils
~890 million years ago
Canada. Microscopic structures resembling modern sea sponges suggest animal life began long before the Cambrian Explosion.
Land Plants
Microscopic spores
~475 million years ago
Oman. Fossilized spores provide the first definitive evidence of plants on land, predating whole plant fossils by 50 million years.
Brown Algae
Fossil interpretations
~450 million years ago
Global. Molecular and fossil evidence points to an origin during the Great Ordovician Biodiversification Event in the oceans.3
There is, however, a notable exception to this fossil-based timeline: the fungi. The fungal kingdom has long been an enigma for paleontologists. Their typically soft, filamentous bodies mean they rarely fossilize well.5 Furthermore, unlike animals or plants, which appear to have a single origin of complex multicellularity, fungi evolved this trait multiple times from diverse unicellular ancestors, making it difficult to pinpoint a single origin event in the sparse fossil record.6 This is where a new study by researchers at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) and their collaborators makes a crucial contribution.
Reading the Genetic Clock
To overcome the gaps in the fungal fossil record, scientists use a “molecular clock.” The concept is that genetic mutations accumulate in an organism’s DNA at a relatively steady rate over generations, like the ticking of a stopwatch.10 By comparing the number of genetic differences between two species, researchers can estimate how long ago they diverged from a common ancestor.10
However, a molecular clock is uncalibrated; it can reveal relative time but not absolute years. To set the clock, scientists need to calibrate it with “anchor points” from the fossil record.12 Given the scarcity of fungal fossils, this has always been a major challenge. The OIST-led team addressed this by incorporating a novel source of information: rare gene “swaps” between different fungal lineages, a process known as horizontal gene transfer (HGT).5 While genes are normally passed down “vertically” from parent to child, HGT is like a gene jumping “sideways” from one species to another. These events provide powerful temporal clues. If a gene from lineage A is found to have jumped into lineage B, it establishes a clear rule: the common ancestor of lineage A must be older than the point in time when the gene appeared in lineage B. By identifying 17 such transfers, the team established a series of “older than/younger than” relationships that helped to dramatically tighten and constrain the fungal timeline.5
Photo by Rachel Horton-Kitchlew on Unsplash
A New History for an Ancient Kingdom
This groundbreaking research was driven by a powerful collaboration between two leading Hungarian research groups from the HUN-REN network and the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Japan. The study was co-led by first authors Lénárd L. Szánthó from the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research and Zsolt Merényi from the HUN-REN Biological Research Centre in Szeged.5 Merényi is part of László G. Nagy’s group, a team renowned for its work on fungal evolutionary genomics and the evolution of multicellularity. This Hungarian expertise was combined with the cutting-edge computational approaches of the Model-Based Evolutionary Genomics Unit at OIST, led by Gergely J. Szöllősi (also affiliated with HUN-REN) and co-led by Dr. Eduard Ocaña-Pallarès.5
Here is what the team did:
Built a broad family tree of fungi from hundreds of conserved genes, analyzing 225 distinct markers across 110 fungal species.5
Dated that tree using the few available fossils plus this new, relative-age information gleaned from rare gene “swaps” between lineages, which tell us which branches must be older or younger and tighten the timeline.
The researchers asked a simple question with big consequences: when did today’s fungi start to diversify? By combining fossils with information on relative ages from rare horizontal gene transfers, their analysis points to the common ancestor of living fungi dating to roughly 1.4–0.9 billion years ago—well before land plants.5 That timing supports a long prelude of fungi–algae interactions that helped set the stage for life on land.
Why This Discovery Matters
Fungi run ecosystems—recycling nutrients, partnering with other organisms, and sometimes causing disease. Pinning down their timeline shows fungi were diversifying long before plants, consistent with early partnerships with algae that likely helped pave the way for terrestrial ecosystems.
This revised timeline fundamentally reframes the story of life’s colonization of land. It suggests that for hundreds of millions of years before the first true plants took root, fungi were already present, likely interacting with algae in microbial communities.5 This long, preparatory phase may have been essential for making Earth’s continents habitable. By breaking down rock and cycling nutrients, these ancient fungi could have been the first true ecosystem engineers, creating the first primitive soils and fundamentally altering the terrestrial environment. In this new view, plants did not colonize a barren wasteland, but rather a world that had been prepared for them over eons by the ancient and persistent activity of the fungal kingdom.
Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash
Publication Details
Title: A timetree of Fungi dated with fossils and horizontal gene transfers Journal:Nature Ecology & Evolution Authors: Lénárd L. Szánthó, Zsolt Merényi, Philip Donoghue, Toni Gabaldón, László G. Nagy, Gergely J. Szöllősi, and Eduard Ocaña-Pallarès DOI Link: 10.1038/s41559-025-02851-z
City parks, often embedded in a highly altered city fabric, are sometimes the only types of natural areas within human settlements. Their importance for both city dwellers and biodiversity is well known, yet parks in Eastern-Central European cities still offer much to study, for example, how their situation within the urban matrix can affect wildlife, and which animal traits facilitate or limit the survival of certain species. A new study reveals the potential of city parks to retain bird diversity, compared to the surrounding landscapes near the cities.
The research was carried out by an international group from the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, with contributions from eight other institutes in Hungary and Romania. Published in Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, the study examines how landscape complexity and the spatial configuration of city parks affect bird community composition and functional trait variation. “We found that bird species richness in city parks was lower than in forest edges but similar to that of agricultural habitats,” explains lead author Tamás Lakatos. “This shows that while parks cannot entirely substitute for natural forests, they remain important components of urban ecosystems.”
The first author of the study, Tamás Lakatos, a PhD student, during bird survey
The researchers recorded birds in 72 city parks across 9 mid-sized cities in Hungary and Romania. In each city, eight sampling sites were delineated: two city parks located in the central part of the cities, two city parks in suburban areas, and four reference areas in the outer, less urbanised, so-called peri-urban areas. For better comparison, reference areas consisted either of forest-dominated habitat edges or primarily agricultural production areas. The team conducted bird surveys using point counts during the peak breeding season (April–May), in the early morning hours, with two repetitions. The researchers surveyed more than 3,000 birds representing 72 species, categorizing them by so called functional traits, like diet, foraging technique, nesting strategy, migratory status, body size, and feeding of nestlings. This approach allowed the team to assess how different functional traits influence birds’ ability to thrive in human-dominated settings, like city parks.
According to the findings, insect-feeding birds were less able to establish populations in urban parks due to the scarcity of suitable insect habitats. In contrast, species that nest in elevated places such as buildings often benefited, finding safe nesting opportunities away from predators like cats and dogs. “Ground-nesting birds face particular challenges in cities because of higher rates of nest predation and human disturbance,” notes Péter Batáry, the project leader and last author of the paper. “By contrast, cavity-nesting species such as tits can thrive if old trees or nest boxes are available.” Furthermore, agricultural fields provided more suitable habitats for larger-bodied birds, which require more extent foraging areas, while generalist species like blackbirds and house sparrows adapted well to urban parks also. However, the spatial configuration of parks, i.e. whether they were situated in suburban areas or in the city centres, has never played a role, meaning that their importance is consistent regardless of location. More specialised species, such as the yellowhammer or hoopoe, however, struggled to find appropriate habitats in urban environments.
Urban park in Târgu Mureș, Romania
The study highlights that city parks cannot maintain full bird diversity on their own, but they can significantly contribute to biodiversity conservation if managed thoughtfully. Measures such as reducing mowing frequency, planting native shrubs and trees, retaining old and dead wood, and installing nest boxes can all increase the natural value of parks for birds. “Our results emphasize that urban green spaces are not isolated patches but parts of a larger ecological network,” says Tamás Lakatos. “Sustainable city planning needs to consider this broader landscape perspective, integrating parks, farmland, and forests into a mosaic that allows most bird species to persist and ecosystem functions to be secured.”
The study is published as:
T. Lakatos, A. Báldi, R. Gallé, D. Korányi, I. Kovács, Z. László, E. Papp, J. J. Purger, K. Sándor, G. Seress, K. Szitár, E. Török, I. Urák, P. Batáry (2025). Functional trait filtering and decline in species richness in urban parks hinder ground-breeding and insectivorous birds. Urban Forestry & Urban Greening, 112: 128988. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ufug.2025.128988
Featured image: Forest edge near Tatabánya, Hungary
Small standing waters, ponds or (temporary) pools, are among the most threatened ecosystems worldwide. They are disappearing at an alarming rate due to climate change, intensive agriculture, and other anthropogenic pressures, resulting in the extinction of their unique biodiversity.
The European Pond Conservation Network (EPCN), founded in 2004, aims to promote the conservation of ponds across Europe by linking research, conservation practice and science communication. An important part of this mission is the series of international EPCN workshops held every two years.
For the next three years, the organization has elected Zsófia Horváth, head of the Biodiversity and Metacommunity Ecology Research Group at Institute of Aquatic Ecology, as its new president.
The Pond Manifesto developed by EPCN is available in seven languages, with the Hungarian version prepared by the team of HUN-REN CER.
The Hungarian Academy of Sciences has announced its ‘Momentum MSCA’ postdoctoral fellowship for the first time, enabling outstanding researchers to join the work of Lendület research groups for a period of 1–3 years. The MTA-ÖK Lendület Fluvial Ecology RG received seven applications, of which two candidates were awarded postdoctoral positions for three years, starting from 1 January 2026. Ghoufrane Derhy will focus on a trait-based comparison of riverine and lacustrine food webs, while Junyao Gu will investigate the relationship between molecular-based biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) across multiple trophic levels in Danube plankton communities. We extend our congratulations to the postdoctoral researchers and the hosting lab!
Due to climate change, more and more streams are drying up periodically, while other pressures, such as pollution or channel modification, mean that many streams are no longer suitable for their natural wildlife. A new study reveals how these unfavourable conditions – both separately and in combination – affect the composition and survival abilities of aquatic macroinvertebrates.
The research found that when a stream experiences intermittent flow, it makes life far more difficult for its inhabitants than poor water quality does. This is because flow intermittency completely removes the habitat, whereas polluted but still present water still offers at least some opportunities for life. Both types of stress reduce the number of species present and significantly alter community composition, leaving only those species that can withstand these challenging conditions.
One key finding is that not all physical or behavioural characteristics (so-called “traits”) respond in the same way to environmental stressors. Some “neutral” traits occur in almost all environments, meaning they are not particularly sensitive to drying or to water quality decline. Examples include small body size, producing many eggs, or strong flying ability. Such traits generally promote survival – for instance, small-bodied animals can hide more easily in moist sediments after drying, while species with large wings can quickly recolonise when water returns.
Other traits, however, are highly sensitive to environmental change. Some species disappear as water quality deteriorates – especially those that filter or collect fine organic matter. In the case of drying, species are most at risk if they are short-lived or have movement restricted to the water. Interestingly, predators also respond differently: in permanent, good-quality streams they may be outcompeted, while in intermittent streams – where there are fewer competitors – they may thrive.
These findings improve our understanding of what aquatic life needs to survive and how streams can be better protected in the future from drying and habitat degradation. The study also makes it clear that it is not the amount of stress that matters most, but its type: drying acts as a much stronger environmental filter than water quality deterioration. This is why conservation measures must give priority to maintaining streamflow regimes – a fundamental prerequisite for sustaining diverse and resilient aquatic communities.
Publication:
Szeles, J., B-Béres, V., Bozóki, T., Fekete, J., Ficsór, M., Boda, P., & Várbiró, G. (2025). Exploring macroinvertebrate community assembly rules: unraveling the effects of flow intermittency and poor ecological potential on environmental filtering and limiting similarity through functional traits. Hydrobiologia, 852(7), 1825-1846.
According to researchers at the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, many perennial grasses that had adapted to ‘normal’ drought conditions perished in the open sandy grasslands of the Kiskunság during the extreme droughts that have become increasingly frequent in recent years. There is, however, some reason for hope: grasses growing on north-facing slopes or near woody patches were more likely to survive.
Festuca vaginata and Stipa borysthenica are two of the most drought-tolerant grass species in Hungary. Following the severe drought of 2022, researchers at the Institute of Ecology and Botany, HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, chose to study them.
For many years, ecologists have been monitoring changes in the local flora of the sandy grasslands near Fülöpháza in the Kiskunság region, using several hundred permanent sampling plots. In 2022, rainfall was extremely low — even by recent standards — and temperatures were unusually high. The following year, the researchers assessed how native grasses had coped with these extreme weather conditions. The results, recently published in Global Ecology and Conservation, revealed an alarming picture.
The ecologists assessed the proportion of living and dead grasses in 200 randomly selected 4×4-metre plots. They also noted whether each plot was situated on the cooler northern or the hotter southern slopes of the sand dunes, and whether trees or shrubs were present in the immediate vicinity. The researchers hypothesised that grasses growing on north-facing slopes and near woody patches would be more likely to survive extreme drought.
In 85 of the 200 sampling plots, more than 95% of the grasses had died — virtually none survived. In 167 plots, at least half of the grasses were lost. “Although these species are considered drought-tolerant, the dieback was extremely severe — the 2022 drought exceeded even their tolerance,” said Anikó Csecserits, lead researcher of the study.
Grass dieback was significantly lower near woody patches and on north-facing slopes of the dunes. While in completely treeless areas most grasses had died, in plots where at least 20% of the surrounding 10-metre radius was covered by woody vegetation, 80–90% of the grasses survived. This effect is therefore quite substantial.
If even the most drought-tolerant native perennial grasses can no longer withstand prolonged drought, open areas will remain — ready to be colonised by even more drought-resistant non-native invasive plant species, such as Sporobolus cryptandrus or certain cacti. Additionally, annual grasses may spread — these are species that are active in winter or during wetter periods, then die back in summer and persist through drought in the form of seeds. Ecologists at the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research warn that the dieback of native species creates ideal conditions for biological invasion.
The CLIMANATRES project aims to support the cross-border coordination of habitat restoration efforts along the Sava and Danube rivers through science-based decision-support tools. One of the project’s lead partners is the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research.
Coordinated in Hungary by the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research (HUN-REN CER), this international project supports ecological planning in line with the EU’s nature restoration objectives and the anticipated impacts of climate change. The initiative aims to contribute to the restoration of natural habitats and to enhance landscape resilience in the face of future environmental challenges. In addition to HUN-REN CER, professional partners from five other countries — Slovenia, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia and Serbia — are also involved in the project.
The project brings together research institutions, nature conservation bodies at local, regional and national levels, as well as forestry planning authorities. Their collaboration aims to promote ecologically informed landscape management and restoration that will enable landscapes to continue supporting the well-being of wildlife — and, through the ecosystem services they provide, the well-being of people — even under the pressures of climate change.
As part of the collaboration, freely accessible online maps and databases will be developed to provide broad, user-friendly support for local and regional ecological restoration planning — and thereby also assist in implementing the EU Nature Restoration Regulation. The maps will indicate the suitability of specific sites for various habitat restoration objectives — such as habitats of community interest or ecological corridors.
As part of the project, researchers and partners will develop five climate-informed action plans aimed at improving the ecological connectivity and natural condition of the Sava and Danube river corridors.
The public launch event of the CLIMANATRES Danube Interreg project was held on 21 July in Vácrátót, at the Institute of Ecology and Botany of the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research. Further details about the event and the project are available on the official websites of the institute and the project.
Our lakes and rivers are subjected to various pressures that lead to an increase in nutrient levels of water. This promotes the excessive growth of free-floating microalgae the phytoplankton. A high abundance of algae reduces water transparency, and thus the depth where light is available for photosynthesis. As a result, overall oxygen production in water decreases.
Importantly, it is not only the quantity of phytoplankton that determines water quality, but also its composition. The extent of shading and changes in the water’s optical properties depend on the size and shape of the algal cells or colonies. While the size of algae can be determined through microscopic measurements and calculations, reliable estimates for comparing the light-absorbing capacity of algae with different shapes have been lacking until recently.
Thanks to research conducted at the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research’s Institute of Aquatic Ecology, we now have accurate data on these properties of microalgae. Members of the Functional Algology Research Group have created three-dimensional digital models of more than 800 algal species and developed mathematical and computational methods, that allow precise calculation of the shaded area of each species.
This database of species specific projected (shading) areas enables new interpretations of existing research findings and phytoplankton water quality data. It also supports the design of interventions aimed at improving water quality through the promotion of desirable phytoplankton community compositions.
Climate change cannot be fixed by simple measures such as planting trees. New research published in Nature Geoscience journal shows that restoring our natural terrestrial habitats can remove much smaller amount of the carbon from the air than previous models suggested. Focus needs to be on rapidly reducing emissions and ensuring that initiatives are equitable and focused on climate change adaptation.
Senior author Ákos Bede-Fazekas, research fellow at the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research outlines that policymakers should take a holistic approach when considering ecosystem restoration, with a focus on biodiversity and nature’s contribution to people, while reducing emphasis on carbon sequestration. In the last 10 years, habitat restoration has been increasingly used as a means for climate change mitigation, a key element in response to both the climate crisis and the biodiversity emergency. The recurring theme being that it could offset a substantial fraction of human carbon emissions. This view was supported by earlier modeling results – but these followed the principle of “plant trees everywhere possible!”. Ecosystem restoration is a more complex process that requires greater consideration than simply establishing seminatural forests or, worse, creating tree plantations.
The international group of scientists was led by Csaba Tölgyesi, of University of Szeged, who highlighted: “Carbon sequestration modeling necessitates a more inclusive approach, considering all possible natural ecosystem types. Forests will store carbon mostly in their biomass, grassland in the soil. All ecosystems are good where they belong.”
The available models and predictions still had some problematic assumptions and incorrect input data, which the researchers wanted to rectify to have a clearer view of the potential of ecosystem restoration in climate change mitigation. Hence, they made a model much more realistic than the previous ones had been. For example, their model does not force restoring forests in every location they are predicted to be suitable – including established grasslands with high carbon sequestration potential or productive agricultural lands. This led them not to a slight adjustment, but to a massive difference from previous carbon capture potentials. The scientists found that ecosystem restoration has a measurable but limited effect on atmospheric carbon concentrations if compared to previous predictions. In the greenest of all climate scenario, 17 percent of human emissions can be recaptured by 2100, while in the business-as-usual (most pessimistic) scenario, it is less than four per cent.
These model forecasts of climate change mitigation via ecosystem restorations suggest an urgent need for a change of direction in polices to transition to a low carbon economy.
Fellow author, Caroline Lehmann, of Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh added: “With the limited likelihood of significantly mitigating climate change through global ecosystem restoration in the short or medium term, policies need to prioritize restoration activities in favor of vulnerable communities and biodiversity to support the resilience of nature and people with ongoing climate change.”
Historically, the burden for ecological restoration has been placed on the Global South with the offsetting and carbon sequestration agenda driven by the Global North. Not only is it unjust that the communities who did not create the problem of climate change bear the brunt of its solution, the study shows that a large number of potential priority regions for restoration for carbon gain are located across the Global North.
Land use change and the increased agrochemical use associated with agricultural intensification significantly alter farmland biodiversity and associated ecosystem services worldwide. Vineyards as ecologically, culturally, and economically important agroecosystems, are particularly vulnerable, facing numerous pests and diseases while only a small proportion adopt sustainable management practices. Nevertheless, under suitable conditions, vineyards can support diverse and abundant predator communities capable of delivering effective natural pest control services. Birds and bats, in particular, play a key role by consuming large quantities of insect pests. However, their contribution to biological control – especially in European permanent crops – remains understudied.
The collaborative study conducted by researchers from the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research and the University of Milan investigated the role of flying vertebrate predators – birds and bats – in vineyard natural pest control. Their findings, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology, demonstrate that these predators not only help regulate pest populations but also increase economic benefit to farmers.
Vineyard with integrated pest management near Káptalantóti, in the Balaton Uplands region (photo: Tamás Lakatos).
Using exclusion experiments in Hungarian vineyards with differing pest management regimes (organic farming vs. integrated pest management) and landscape contexts (forested vs. open, agricultural landscapes), the authors examined how birds and bats influence arthropod densities and related ecosystem functions. They recorded bird densities and bat activity, as well as the abundance of a key grape pest – the European grapevine moth (Lobesia botrana) – alongside phytophagous and predatory arthropods in the grapevine canopy. Additionally, they assessed fruit damage caused by moths, herbivory from canopy-dwelling arthropods, and associated predation pressure. Results showed that forested landscapes supported greater bird and bat activity in spring and were associated with reduced fruit damage, primarily due to the suppressive effect of increased bat activity on moth populations. While management practices had no measurable effect on birds and bats, organic vineyards hosted more canopy-dwelling arthropods and faced greater leaf herbivory, although also higher predation pressure on sentinel caterpillars. Most importantly, fruit damage and herbivory were consistently higher in exclusion treatments, underscoring the role of birds and bats in mitigating herbivory and enhancing crop yield.
Grapevines inside a cage used for the exclusion of birds and bats (photo: Dávid Korányi).Installed AudioMoth device in a waterproof case for bat sound recording (photo: Dávid Korányi).Grapevine moth (Lobesia botrana) specimens caught with a pheromone trap (photo: Dávid Korányi).
These results highlight the ecological and economic value of birds and bats as natural pest control agents. Dávid Korányi, lead researcher of the field experiment, explains: “The presence of these predators can be promoted by maintaining connected landscapes with native deciduous forest patches, hedgerows, and small groups of trees that offer abundant food sources and suitable nesting or roosting sites.” The study also underscores the importance of local vineyard management in pest control. The senior author of the research, Péter Batáry, adds: “Pest control services can be further enhanced through organic management, which avoids herbicides and synthetic insecticides, thereby facilitating the colonization of beneficial arthropods and strengthening pest predation pressure in vineyards.”
Publication:
Dávid Korányi, Sándor Zsebők, András Báldi, Mattia Brambilla, Máté Varga & Péter Batáry (2025). Forest cover enhances pest control by birds and bats independently of vineyard management intensity. Journal of Applied Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.70094
Requests for copies of the study and interviews can be sent to:
Dr. Dávid Korányi – HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research: koranyi.david@ecolres.hu
Dr. Péter Batáry – HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research: batary.peter@ecolres.hu
A new research project started in the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological research titled „Increasing the ecological sustainability of oak forests by close-to-nature forestry based on experimental research (#oakadapt)”. The project is founded by the Interreg Slovakia-Hungary Programme. It is based on a collaboration between Slovakian and Hungarian research and forest management organizations, the leader of the consortium is the Technical University in Zvolen. The scientific leader of the project in the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research is Dr. Péter Ódor.
Central European oak dominated forests have been used for centuries and currently exhibit serious biodiversity decline associated with global environmental changes. Nonetheless, they preserve considerable natural capital. They have a key role in the timber provisioning for the society, protection of forest biodiversity and recreational purposes. They have a large potential in mitigation of climate change, protection of soil and water. Forest management has high responsibility in the sustainable use of forests, integration of protection elements and resilience against climate change. Developing sustainable management approaches that increase the resilience of forests and support biodiversity are central in current applied ecological research. Scientists from the Technical University in Zvolen (SK) and the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research (HU) experimentally investigate the effects of different forestry interventions and gap-cutting characteristics on forest microclimate, biodiversity, tree growth, and regeneration. Within the project, they will continue their experiments, make comparisons between forest stands managed by continuous cover forestry and rotations forestry, produce scientific research papers and transform the results into the forestry practice for local management partners: Forests of Krupina City (SK) and the Pilis Park Forestry Company (HU). This research can contribute to the scientific basis of continuous cover and close-to-nature management systems, that are used by the manager partners on large forest area. In addition, new management guidelines for ecologically sustainable forestry will be prepared in cooperation with National Forest Centre (SK) and Real Forest (SK) organizations. Pilis Park Forestry Company will develop and introduce the administration system of gaps and gap management, as well as introduce a monitoring of game browsing for successful forest regeneration. National Forest Centre will provide service for data sharing and information reflecting favourable status of forest biodiversity before global environmental changes. Such information and databases will support knowledge-based decision-making and partner’s cooperation. Results of the project will be widely disseminated among stakeholders, including education, nature conservations and forestry sector and provide important example and reference for future climate smart forestry.
Project information:
ID: HUSK/2302/1.2/168
Lead researcher: Ódor, Péter
Planned duration: 2024-2027
Amount of support: 336.000 EUR
EU contribution: 268.800 EUR
National contribution: 67.200 EUR
Founding organization: Interreg Slovakia-Hungary
The HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research organised a workshop on ‘The role of ecological monitoring in understanding Hungary’s key environmental problems and developing evidence-based solutions’ on 2 September 2024. The meeting was attended by 75 participants, including researchers from HUN-REN CER and several research institutions and universities, representatives from the Hungarian Research Network (HUN-REN) Headquarters, and partners from the fields of public nature conservation, public health, water, forestry, NGOs and private companies.
During the morning programme, Director General László Zsolt Garamszegi first presented the mission and the strategic concept of the public monitoring programme of the Research Centre. Ecological monitoring is a scientific activity for public purposes, in which socially, economically and environmentally important phenomena are monitored regularly. The aim is to identify and prevent harmful effects on society, the economy, and the environment as soon as possible, and to support positive processes by analysing and interpreting the data collected. The ecological monitoring activities of the HUN-REN CER mostly cover key gaps that cannot be filled by the programmes of public bodies and cannot be adequately covered by data. We have country-wide monitoring programmes and monitoring systems that operate on a regional basis, but there is also the potential to extend the know-how to a national level. Some of these programmes monitor the status of entire ecosystems, while others focus on specific groups of organisms or species that are key for environmental, social, and economic reasons. The programmes address key areas of relevance to the public sector, specific sectors and society and provide science-based answers to important practical questions.
You can read more about our monitoring programmes here: https://ecolres.hun-ren.hu/tarsadalom/#kozcelu.
During the morning Tamara Szentiványi presented the Mosquito Monitor programme, Péter Ódor and Ferenc Horváth the Forest Reserve Monitoring programme. The three sub-programmes of the River Water Monitoring Programme were then presented by the researchers: Pál Boda presented on the monitoring of drying small rivers, András Abonyi on the monitoring of large rivers, and Erika Juhász on the monitoring of beavers. During the afternoon workshops, the professional discussion continued along these main themes. The topics of the three workshops were: River water monitoring programme – water scarcity, biodiversity crisis, human-wildlife conflicts; Strategic issues in forest reserve monitoring; Mosquito monitoring programme – epidemiological aspects and mosquito control practices. One of the main lessons of the workshop was that cooperation between the public and private sector, and the research community is essential to tackle the environmental problems of our time.
Researchers at the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research (HUN-REN CER) are continuously studying the effects of changing environment on ecosystems, caused by human activity and climate change, and how animals respond to it. They recently showed that the increase of salinity of ponds can drive the evolution of planktonic organisms, and this process can be observed in the Daphnia (water flea) populations in the sodic water of World War II bomb craters in Hungary. The paper presenting their latest discoveries has been published in the flagship biological journal of the Royal Society, Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
Natural ecosystems are exposed to a multitude of stressors including climate change, urbanisation, or the rising salinity of aquatic habitats. These stressors change the environmental conditions, which determine the success of organisms. The emerging spatial variation in environmental factors is called a gradient. The Plankton Ecology Research Group at HUN-REN CER, led by research fellow Csaba Vad, studies the effects of environmental change on the functioning, species composition, and evolution of planktonic communities.
“Organisms have to adapt to environmental stress, otherwise they go extinct,” the researcher says. “Sensitive species can be replaced by other more stress-tolerant species, or the resident populations can also adapt to the changing environment. In other words, an evolutionary adaptation occurs in the population, and this provides an opportunity to survive in the habitat.”
Salinisation, the increasing salinity levels of aquatic ecosystems, is a global threat. The salinity of large lakes is rising as well, but the change can be much more dramatic in shallow temporary ponds. Salinisation is caused by many factors, but one of the most important drivers is increasing evaporation (as a result of warming). Meanwhile, pollution from mining or other industrial activities, or the environmental effects of urbanisation can also lead to salinisation.
Soda pan in the Seewinkel area, Austria (Oberer Stinkersee, photo: Horváth Zsófia)
Soda pans are naturally saline habitats in the lowlands of Carpathian Basin. The researchers studied the plankton communities and salinity of these soda pans and compared them to the communities of ~80-year-old sodic bomb crater ponds in the Great Plains of Hungary. Their exact origin is somewhat uncertain, but some sources suggest that during World War II, American bombers bombed the plains instead of the nearby airport, creating more than 100 explosion craters in an 800 m diameter circle. These craters were filled with sodic water and have since become very useful model systems for ecological research.
The salinity of the bomb crater ponds varies widely, so ecologists were able to compare their Daphnia populations and find out whether they are adapted to this environmental factor. Water fleas, such as the object of this study, Daphnia magna, are large-bodied zooplankton species, which are common model organisms in ecological and evolutionary research, because they play important roles in aquatic communities and can be kept easily in laboratories. “We wanted to find out whether the salinity tolerance of Daphnia originating from ponds with low and high salinity levels is different”, tells Csaba Vad. “We also studied soda pans, which are also sodic and hold similar zooplankton communities to the bomb craters. Both types of these habitats are naturally saline, and can be used as model systems, because their clusters consist of several ponds with different salinity levels in close proximity to each other.”
If local adaptation occurs, the salinity tolerance of the populations is matching with the salinity levels of their home ponds. This means that water fleas from more saline ponds will have a higher salinity tolerance compared to the Daphnia from less saline waters. In theory, local adaptation could be more prominent in more isolated habitats (in ponds more distant in space), because the mixing of their populations with others is less likely in the case of more distant habitats. The soda pans are kilometres apart, while bomb crater ponds are only a few metres away from each other. So, based on merely the position of ponds, more intense evolutionary patterns could be expected to be found in soda pans. But this was not the case.
Local adaptation (adaptation to the local salinity concentrations) was only found in the bomb crater ponds, which are very close to each other in space. There are some possible reasons underlying this observation. For example, salinity levels in soda pans are usually higher and more variable within and across years than in the bomb crater ponds. Soda pans are also shallower and larger, while bomb craters are deeper and smaller in diameter. When soda pans dry up, the resting eggs of water fleas can be easily blown to another pond by the wind. In contrast, bomb craters dry up more rarely (only in years with extreme weather conditions), their salinity level fluctuates less, and during the explosion, a prominent rim was created along their edges. Thus, Daphnia eggs cannot be as easily transported among the neighbouring ponds, and the more stable salinity levels allow for local adaptation to this stressor.
The researchers found adaptation to salinity in the soda pans as well, but this occurred on a regional level. Soda pans have a higher average salinity level than bomb craters, therefore the water flea populations from soda pans have higher overall salinity tolerance than those from the bomb crater ponds.
“Despite soda pans being more distant from each other, because of their more frequent drying-up, the gene flow among their Daphnia populations is more intense,” argues Csaba Vad. “Furthermore, many waterbirds visit soda pans, which transport several aquatic organisms from one pond to another. These circumstances overall reduce the possibility for local adaptation in this habitat type. In contrast, we found strong local adaptation in bomb crater ponds, which are sometimes only a few metres apart. Our results show that the response of aquatic communities to salinity may be influenced by several factors.”
Opening image: The model organism of the study, the water flea Daphnia magna Photo: Zsófia Horváth
Corrado Alessandrini is an Italian PhD student visiting HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, and lives inside the National Botanical Garden in Vácrátót. He studies the agro-ecology of apple orchards in Trentino, and Europe’s most alpine birds, the snowfinch. He discovered that the climate change is destroying the unique microhabitats which are essential for the survival of this unique species. Corrado feels great about being connected to the nature literally every minute in the Garden, with all the trees and flowers blooming, and the birds calling, greeting the spring.
– Why are you visiting the Centre for Ecological Research?
– My Phd is upon the EU-funded National Recovery and Resilience Plan (PNRR), which requires to have a period abroad during the PhD (to make science more interconnected at the European level). I already knew Péter Batáry, head of the Lendület Landscape and Conservation Ecology research group, for his several works on agro-ecology and – since my supervisor, Mattia Brambilla, personally knew him, we thought that he could be a good teacher for my period abroad. He kindly accepted me in Vácrátót for a 6-months stay. I have been now here for five months, sadly time is running out! During my stay here, I have been basically studying my own data, but by applying and learning the techniques that the research group uses here, basically within the fields of Landscape and Community Ecology.
– Please tell me about yourself and your studies first. What’s your background and what are you studying?
– I’m a naturalist from Rome, Italy. I started a bachelor in natural science, so I integrate animals, plants, rocks, and ecosystems in my studies. This gave me an holistic view that I really enjoy having in my background. After the BSc, I kept studying in Rome for a master’s degree in Ecology and Conservation. As a master thesis I contacted Mattia Brambilla from University of Milan and together we studied the foraging ecology of the white-winged snowfinch (Montifrigilla nivalis), an alpine bird species endangered by climate change, by using innovative methodes of remote sensing. Thanks to this, we’ve disclosed new aspects of the species’ ecology and reaffirmed its dependence on climate-sensitive habitats, which poses a threat on the species. After that, I went to Oviedo (Spain), to keep studying this bird with Maria del Mar Delgado, again integrating field studies with remote sensing, which is very helpful in such harsh environments like mountains.
– Your PhD topic is about the connections between agriculture and wildlife communities. Why is this topic interesting to you?
– Yes, I’m currently a PhD student at University of Milan, with a field project in the Non Valley (Trentino, north of Italy), one of the most productive areas for apples in all Europe. There, farmers are trying to make the production more sustainable, so they wanted us to study the biological communities that live inside the apple orchards to try to understand whether their activities are impacting these communities and how such communities can provide valuable ecosystem services for the apple production. So, last year we started this project by firstly focussing on three taxa: birds, pollinators (especially insect pollinators), and rodents. These taxa are involved in the supply of important ecosystem services, basically insect-pest control (insectivorous birds feeding on apple pests), pollination (by bees and other wild pollinators), and weed control (whose spread is controlled by granivorous birds and rodents). Richer biological communities (and especially the occurrence of rare bird or butterfly species) can also be very attractive for nature-based tourism, which is an important asset for the whole Trentino province.
– You are accommodated inside the National Botanical Garden in Vácrátót. How does it feel?
– Definitely great! I lived in Milan this past year. And Milan is a very crowded, “hyper-urban” city, I would say, with very few green areas. While here I’m all the time connected with nature. Literally every single minute I can hear some bird calling. For instance, now birds are “warming up” for the breeding season, and many have already started singing. Trees are sprouting after the winter, and the first flowers are shyly colouring the Garden. Few weeks ago, squirrels came out of dormancy, they really looked sleepy! Well, every day you can find something going on when you have so much life around. And for me, as a naturalist, this is precious.
– In Italy, you cooperate with the apple farmers. Is there any conflict between the ecologists and farmers because of their different interests?
– We work with a farmer’s association that started to push towards a more sustainable agriculture 20 years ago by adopting integrated management. Their practices are not pure conventional, indeed, and they do intend to be more sustainable in their production. This makes our cooperation much easier. Of course, we come from very different perspectives, but we need one another, because we do love apples, and they do want to hear blackbirds singing in their orchards. The main goal of agriculture is to produce food, not to save birds, and we do acknowledge that we all need this food. On the same time, we all know that conventional intensive agriculture is driving farmland birds to extinction and that it severely impacts wildlife (and human) health. Here we are trying a new way. Sometimes (and my supervisor Mattia Brambilla proved this in previous works in vinyards), very little things can make a huge difference for biodiversity. For example, by slightly shifting the timing of mowing the grasses inside the orchards we could sustain much richer pollinator communities (that forage on those herbs and flowers). You see, this alternative management doesn’t really affect farmer’s production, but it does help biodiversity. Solutions like this is what we are all looking for.
– You conducted a lot of studies on the snowfinch. Why is this bird so important to you?
– The white-winged snowfinch has quite a large distribution area. It is found originally in the highest mountains of the Himalaya, but, as the only species from its genus (Montifringilla), came to Europe as well, following all the mountains: Caucasus, Balkans, Alps, and Pyrenees. Nowadays it’s the most cold-adapted species in Europe. This is the most alpine bird we have: in fact, it’s the only one that can survive above the tree line (which means roughly above 2000 m), even during winter. They can live with all snow around in very harsh conditions. Because they are adapted to cold, they are one of the most endangered species in the age of climate change, and note that mountains are warming up twice faster than lowlands. This is why we are so concerned about studying its European population. We have already found evidence of population declines (e.g. in Switzerland), and we found that they depend on climate-sensitive habitats. We focussed on their breeding ecology: this is a critical period, when the adults forage for the newborn chicks. We saw that they forage in specific microhabitats (namely snow patches, snow margins, and low-sward grasslands) which are all predicted to disappear in a very near (warmer) future. We expect that, as in a few years they would have more problems in finding suitable microhabitats for feeding their chicks, this would hamper their survival and therefore the fitness of the whole population.
– How do you study the snowfinches and their habitat?
– I wanted to assist the current research with the potential of remote sensing, which is nowadays able to capture at high resolution what’s going on Earth’s surface. We use satellites to describe the environment where the birds live, so we don’t need to go up there to see whether vegetation is blooming or to estimate snow cover during the breeding season. By using satellites, we can record such changes remotely, every 3 to 5 days, in a very uniform way, and simultaneously over very large extents. We found that remote sensing can be a useful conservation tool. Once you know the area where they live, for instance, a national park, you can keep tracking the evolution of those critical habitats (snow patches and short grasslands) across the breeding season, and eventually act if conditions become critical.
– Is the climate change affecting the whole bird community or there are some species which are affected most?
– In general, it starts by affecting specialist species (which are less capable to face environmental changes due to their high degree of ecological specialization), but later its effects propagate to the whole community. Communities are constantly adapting to changes in the environment (this mechanism is called “homeostasis”). But climate change is now stressing them at an unprecedented level, by disrupting many ecological dynamics at the same time. This results in a general loss of the resilience of bird (or any other animal) populations, and their ability to cope with other environmental changes also declines. In high mountains, for instance, we now know that climate and ski tourism (another important – anthropogenic – source of environmental change), are synergically impacting on our bird communities.
– What are your plans after you go back to Italy?
– We will continue investigating the birds in the Non Valley. From the data we collected last year, we noted very low densities of great tits, an insectivore species that is very important for controlling the outbreaks of pest insects in orchards. Hence, we now want to test whether providing them with nest boxes (where they can breed) can help increasing their population inside the apple orchards, therefore maximising the supply of the pest-control ecosystem service. Besides this, on a longer term, I think I will keep doing the same: studying nature to provide solutions for better policies, which is what conservation biology does. No matter where, in the agro-ecosystems or up on the mountain tops, always trying to push us all to be a little bit “softer” with our Earth.
Gábor Boross, an evolutionary and systems biologist, returns to Hungary as part of the HUN-REN Welcome Home and Foreign Researcher Recruitment Programme, following his postdoctoral research on lung cancer evolution in mice at Stanford University in the United States. At the Institute of Evolution of the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, he will establish a new research group to investigate how the ‘driver’ mutations responsible for cancer interact with each other, ultimately leading to the growth of cancerous tumours.
Gábor Boross used the Tuba-seq technology developed at Stanford University. This technology primarily involves the utilisation of CRISPR genome engineering techniques to induce specific mutations in mouse lung epithelial cells. Tumours originating from these mutations are marked with DNA barcodes. By sequencing these short DNA segments, the size of the tumours can be determined, thereby providing insights into how specific mutations impact tumour growth or even how they influence the response to various therapies.
While conducting research in the United States, the young researcher further developed the Tuba-seq technology, considering that human tumours typically result from multiple mutations occurring concurrently. The objective was to enhance the system making it suitable to handle combinations of mutations in a highly scalable manner, allowing for cost-effective measurements of a large number of mutations with minimal experiments. With the backing of the HUN-REN grant, he is now bringing this technology to Hungary and applying it to create high-coverage interaction maps and describe adaptive landscapes that determine the progression of cancer.
As part of the HUN-REN Welcome Home and Foreign Researcher Recruitment Programme, which was announced for the first time in 2023 by the HUN-REN HQ, six Hungarian researchers and one foreign researcher from the international elite are coming to Hungary to form research groups at HUN-REN research sites to undertake their outstanding scientific projects as part of the winning proposals.
RestPoll is a new project which aims to permanently restore and connect pollinator habitats in Europe. The project began in October 2023 and will run for 4 years. The project is led by the Chair of Nature Conservation and Landscape Ecology at the University of Freiburg. It aims to provide society with tools to reverse wild pollinator declines and to position Europe as a global leader in pollinator restoration.
Butterfly on twig, rename to: “Butterfly drinking plum juice” the butterfly is Vanessa atalanta – Felix Fornoff
Restoring pollinator habitats
To counteract the decline of pollinators and thus pollination services, it is important to restore their flowering and nesting habitats. This is important for biodiversity in general and for agricultural yields and food security.
RestPoll will, together with stakeholders ranging from individual land managers to governments, focus on measures and cross-sectoral approaches to restore pollinators and their services. Central to RestPoll is the establishment of a Europe-wide network of pollinator restoration case-study areas and Living Labs (LL), which are unique hubs for experimentation, demonstration, and mutual learning. Restoration activities in the eighteen case-study areas in fourteen European countries are partly already set up by stakeholders in cooperation with RestPoll researchers or vice versa.
The RestPoll consortium combines expertise from sixteen countries ranging from natural and social scientists, twenty-three research institutions, one NGO, three businesses, three ministries and one national park. Stakeholders along the food value chain will be engaged through newly developed participatory approaches at diverse social, ecological, and political scales. The project partners are a team of smart and passionate creatives.
Grass with yellow flowers rename to: “Bumblebee on spring flowers in vineyard” – Felix Fornoff
Kick-off in Lund, Sweden
The first meeting with all project partners will take place to kick-off the project and will be held on 28 and 29 November in Lund, Sweden. It is an opportunity for all project partners to discuss in person how to reach the ambitious project goals. The partners will share an overview of their work packages and certain topics related to data collection and policymaking will be discussed further. Alexandra-Maria Klein is coordinator of the project and currently a guest professor at the University of Lund. She is excited to launch the multi-actor restoration project.
“The project will support land-use transformation towards biodiversity-friendly and productive landscapes across Europe.”
– Alexandra-Maria Klein
Pollinator on purple flower, rename to: “Hoverfly on purple flower” its Volucella bombylans on Thyme – Felix Fornoff
Launching RestPoll website
During the kick-off in Lund, the website for the project will also be launched: www.restpoll.eu. The website will stimulate knowledge exchange and include background information on the project and updates such as news, planned activities and milestones which have been reached.
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon Europe Framework Programme under grant agreement No. 101082102.
Pollinator on yellow flower, that ok, it’s a hoverfly too (Syritta pipiens) – Felix Fornoff
Council and Parliament reach agreement on new rules to restore and preserve degraded habitats in the EU
Today, the Council presidency and European Parliament representatives reached a provisional political agreement on a regulation on nature restoration. The proposal aims to put measures in place to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030, and all ecosystems in need of restoration by 2050. It sets specific, legally binding targets and obligations for nature restoration in each of the listed ecosystems — from agricultural land and forests to marine, freshwater and urban ecosystems.
The regulation is an integral part of the Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 and will help the EU reach its international commitments, in particular the UN Kunming-Montreal global biodiversity framework agreed at the 2022 UN biodiversity conference (COP15).
he provisional agreement will have to be endorsed and formally adopted by the co-legislators before entering into force.
Informal meeting of telecommunications, transport, energy ministers, 27 Feburary. Maria Teresa Ribera Rodriguez Minister for the Ecological Transition and Demographic Challenge, Spain. Photo: Josefine Stenersen
“We are faced with an increasingly dramatic reality: EU’s nature and biodiversity are in danger and need to be protected. I am proud of today’s indispensable agreement between the Council and Parliament on a nature restoration law, the first of its kind. It will help us rebuild healthy biodiversity levels across member states and preserve nature for the future generations, while fighting climate change and remaining committed to our climate goals.”
Teresa Ribera Rodríguez, acting third vice-president of the government and minister for the ecological transition and the demographic challenge of Spain
Scope and targets of the regulation
The new rules will help to restore degraded ecosystems across member states’ land and sea habitats, achieve the EU’s overarching objectives on climate mitigation and adaptation, and enhance food security. The regulation requires member states to establish and implement measures to restore at least 20% of the EU’s land and sea areas by 2030.
The regulation covers a range of terrestrial, coastal and freshwater ecosystems, including wetlands, grasslands, forests, rivers and lakes, as well as marine ecosystems, including seagrass and sponge and coral beds (listed in Annexes I and II). It requires member states to put measures in place, by 2030, to restore at least 30% of the habitats types listed in both Annexes that are in poor condition. Until 2030, the co-legislators agreed that member states need to prioritise Natura 2000 sites when implementing the restoration measures set out in the regulation.
Member states must also establish measures to restore at least 60% of habitats in poor condition by 2040 and at least 90% by 2050. An additional flexibility was added for very common and widespread habitats.
Non-deterioration requirement
The text includes a requirement to prevent significant deterioration of areas subject to restoration that have reached good condition and of areas where the terrestrial and marine habitats listed in Annexes I and II occur. The co-legislators agreed to make this requirement effort-based. The requirement will be measured at habitat type level.
Restoring pollinators
In recent decades, the abundance and diversity of wild insect pollinators in Europe have declined dramatically. To address this, the regulation introduces specific requirements for member states to set out measures to reverse the decline of pollinator populations by 2030 at the latest. Based on delegated acts adopted by the Commission to establish a science-based method for monitoring pollinator diversity and populations, member states will have to monitor progress in this respect, at least, every six years after 2030.
Ecosystem-specific obligations
The regulation sets out specific requirements for different types of ecosystems.
Agriculture ecosystems
The text requires member states to put measures in place aiming to achieve increasing trends in at least two of the following three indicators:
the grassland butterfly index
the share of agricultural land with high-diversity landscape features (HDLFs)
the stock of organic carbon in cropland mineral soil
It also sets timebound targets to increase the common farmland bird index at national level.
The co-legislators agreed to provide flexibility to member states when rewetting peatlands, as some will be disproportionately impacted by these obligations. The text sets targets to restore 30% of drained peatlands under agricultural use by 2030, 40% by 2040 and 50% by 2050, although member states that are strongly affected will be able to apply a lower percentage. Restoration measures include the rewetting of organic soils constituting drained peatlands, which helps increase biodiversity and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The co-legislators also agreed that the achievement of the rewetting targets does not imply an obligation for farmers and private landowners.
Forest ecosystems
Under the agreed text, member states will be required to put measures in place to enhance the biodiversity of forest ecosystems and achieve increasing trends at the national level of certain indicators, such as standing and lying deadwood and the common forest bird index, taking into account the risk of forest fires.
The co-legislators also added a provision calling on member states to contribute to the planting of at least three billion additional trees by 2030 at the EU level.
Urban ecosystems and river connectivity
For urban ecosystems, the Council and Parliament agreed that member states should achieve an increasing trend in urban green areas until a satisfactory level is reached. They also agreed that member states should ensure that there is no net loss of urban green space and urban tree canopy cover between the entry into force of the regulation and the end of 2030, unless urban ecosystems already have over 45% of green space.
The provisional agreement includes an obligation for member states to identify and remove man-made barriers to the connectivity of surface waters, in order to turn at least 25 000 km of rivers into free-flowing rivers by 2030, and maintain restored natural river connectivity.
National restoration plans
Under the new rules, member states must regularly submit national restoration plans to the Commission, showing how they will deliver on the targets. They must also monitor and report on their progress.
The co-legislators opted for a stepwise approach. Member states would first submit national restoration plans covering the period until June 2032, with a strategic overview for the period beyond June 2032. By June 2032, member states would submit restoration plans for the ten years until 2042 with a strategic overview until 2050, and by June 2042 they would submit plans for the remaining period to 2050.
The text allows member states to take into account their diverse social, economic and cultural requirements, regional and local characteristics and population density, including the specific situation of outermost regions, when establishing their plans.
Financing restoration measures
The provisional agreement introduces a new provision tasking the Commission with submitting a report, one year after the entry into force of the regulation, with an overview of the financial resources available at EU level, an assessment of the funding needs for implementation, and an analysis identifying any funding gaps. Where appropriate, the report would also include proposals for adequate funding, without prejudging the next multiannual financial framework (MFF, 2028–2034).
The co-legislators also agreed to introduce a provision encouraging member states to promote existing private and public schemes to support stakeholders implementing restoration measures, including land managers and owners, farmers, foresters and fishers. The text also clarifies that national restoration plans do not entail an obligation for countries to re-programme the common agricultural policy (CAP) or the common fisheries policy (CFP) funding under the 2021–2027 MFF in order to implement this regulation.
Review and emergency brake
The provisional agreement sets the date of 2033 for the Commission to review and assess the application of the regulation and its impacts on the agricultural, fisheries and forestry sectors, as well as its wider socio-economic effects.
The text also introduces a possibility to suspend the implementation of those provisions of the regulation related to agricultural ecosystems for up to one year via an implementing act, in the event of unforeseeable and exceptional events outside of the EU’s control and with severe EU-wide consequences for food security.
The infographic presents the state of nature in the EU based on the latest scientific reports. See full infographic
Next steps
The provisional agreement will now be submitted to the member states’ representatives within the Council (Coreper) and to the Parliament’s environment committee for endorsement. If approved, the text will then need to be formally adopted by both institutions, following legal-linguistic revision, before it can be published in the EU’s Official Journal and enter into force.
Background
The European Commission proposed a nature restoration law on 22 June 2022, under the EU biodiversity strategy for 2030, which is part of the European Green Deal. Over 80% of European habitats are in poor shape. Past efforts to protect and preserve nature have not been able to reverse this worrying trend.
This is why, for the first time ever, the proposal sets out to adopt measures to not only preserve but to restore nature. The proposal aims to improve the state of nature by setting binding targets and obligations across a broad range of ecosystems on land and at sea.
Member states would have to put in place effective and area-based restoration measures in order to reach the ecosystem-specific targets. In order to assess the measures, member states would have to plan ahead by developing national nature restoration plans, in close cooperation with scientists, interested stakeholders and the public. The proposal would also define biodiversity indicators to measure progress.
The Council reached an agreement (‘general approach’) on the proposal on 20 June 2023 at the Environment Council meeting, while the European Parliament adopted its position on 12 July.
