News
Garden ponds: Hidden gems of urban biodiversity conservation
Urbanisation is rapidly transforming landscapes worldwide, becoming a key driver of global biodiversity loss. It often impacts biodiversity negatively by creating selective environments that limit species diversity in urban compared to natural habitats. Amidst this challenge, […]
National Research Excellence Programme projects launching in 2025 – Flowers and pollinators for the buzzing cities
Viktor Szigeti, a research fellow at the Institute of Ecology and Botany of HUN-REN CER, has been awarded a grant from the STARTING sub-programme of the National Research Excellence Programme, for the research project “Flowers and […]
Nutrient enrichment: an emerging threat to tropical forests
Tropical forests, often referred to as the “lungs of the Earth,” are essential for sustaining life on our planet. They provide clean air, water, and unparalleled biodiversity. While deforestation due to slash-and-burn agriculture, mining, and logging […]
Small habitats, big consequences: Connectivity loss in pond networks threatens microbial biodiversity
Researchers at the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research in Hungary applied an outdoor experimental setup of artificial ponds (mesocosms) to simulate habitat fragmentation and found that it significantly reduces microbial biodiversity, particularly among unicellular microeukaryotes. The […]
Invasive populations of tiger mosquitoes continuously expand the diversity of hosts in their blood-meal
The invasive mosquito species, the tiger mosquito (Aedes albopictus), poses significant threats to human and animal health due to its ability to spread over large geographic areas and act as a vector for numerous pathogens. Understanding […]
The role of ecological monitoring in understanding Hungary’s key environmental problems and developing evidence-based solutions
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, […]
Carbon sequestration in primary and old-growth forests in Europe is much higher than previously thought
The first pan-European study of its kind (Keith, H., Z. Kun, S. Hugh et al. 2024 – nature, communications earth & environment) calculated that Europe’s existing forests could sequester up to 309 megatons of carbon dioxide […]
Group selection can explain the origin of simple multicellularity
There is a lot of debate about how and why simple multicellularity emerged many times independently and what factors contributed to its prevalence. There are many theories why it was advantageous to be multicellular. Factors with […]
Better understanding the endozoochorous dispersal of alien and invasive fishes and plants
Dispersal is a crucial process in community ecology, through which individuals of a species can move into new and often different habitats. Species spread can happen actively, with individuals moving on their own, or passively, aided […]
Diverse native wildflower plantings for pollinators in farmlands
Pollinators are declining rapidly, largely due to land conversion and intensification of agriculture. To mitigate their crisis, low-disturbance habitats, such as sown wildflower plantings (commonly known forms are wildflower strips at the edges of arable fields), […]
Researchers show that increase in water salinity can drive evolution in planktonic organisms
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 […]
Numerical models for a better understanding of long-term effects on lake ecosystems
Nowadays we hear a lot about climate change impacts in general, however, we still lack in-depth knowledge about how climate change might modify the processes determining the ecological status of lakes and the structure and functioning […]
Interview with Corrado Alessandrini about apple orchards in Trentino, white-winged snowfinch and the National Botanical Garden of Vácrátót.
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, […]
Internationally recognised visiting researcher arrives this year at the Institute of Evolution of the HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research
In the framework of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (MTA) Distinguished Guest Scientists Fellowship Programme, ten internationally renowned visiting professors will arrive at the research centres and supported research groups of the HUN-REN Hungarian Research Network […]
National mapping and assessment of ecosystem services in Hungary
The nature surrounding us, the living world, and the ecosystem provide us with the means to produce food. They play an essential role in regulating the climate by absorbing carbon dioxide, storing carbon, or protecting the […]
Boross Gábor joins HUN-REN CER to establish a new cancer evalution research group within HUN-REN’s excellence programme
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 […]
Workshop on how the Convention on Biological Diversity works in practice
The diversity of life on our planet is declining at an unprecedented rate, as confirmed by a series of international scientific studies, evaluations and assessments. Recognising this process and mitigating the damage is the subject of […]
A bombcrater pond network demonstrates the importance of connectivity for aquatic biodiversity
Habitat fragmentation poses a growing global threat to our natural ecosystems, making it one of the greatest challenges in biodiversity conservation. Among the most vulnerable of these ecosystems are ponds, due to their small sizes and […]
