6) Ecosystem functions and services

6.1 Ecosystem Service in Terrestrial Systems

Work of our research group covers various topics ranging from studies on pollinators and pollination ecology in agricultural landscapes and seminatural habitats to the mesocosm experiments studying the interacions of below and above-ground ecosystem functions and services. In addition to that our experiments on soil decomposition and pest control contribute to cooperation with other research topics helping cooperation between the various research groups. Involving the Futures Studies Department at Corvinus University of Budapest approaches and practices of social sciences are also employed in our horizon scan research on ecosystems.

Publications
Riho Marja, D Kleijn, T Tscharntke, AM Klein, T Frank & P Batáry (2019) Effectiveness of agri-environmental management on pollinators is moderated more by ecological contrast than by landscape structure or land-use intensity. Ecology Letters 22(9): 1493-1500.
Batáry, P. et al. (2017) Non-linearities in bird responses across urbanisation gradients: a meta-analysis. Glob Change Biol. Accepted Author Manuscript. doi:10.1111/gcb.13964
Fischer, C. ... P. Batáry (2017) Ecosystem services and disservices provided by small rodents in arable fields: Effects of local and landscape management. J Appl Ecol. 00:1–11. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13016
Kovács-Hostyánszky, A. et al. ... (2017) Ecological intensification to mitigate impacts of conventional intensive land use on pollinators and pollination. Ecology Letters 20:673-689
Lunja M. Ernst, T. Tscharntke, P. Batáry (2017) Grassland management in agricultural vs. forested landscapes drives butterfly and bird diversity. Biological Conservation 216: 51-59
Mihók, B. et al. ... (2017) Biodiversity on the waves of history: conservation in a changing social and institutional environment in Hungary, a post-soviet EU member state. Biological Conservation 211: 67-75

6.2 Biodiversity and ecosystem functions in streams

In this topic, we examined the composition, diversity and ecosystem functions of aquatic invertebrates in streams. We compare natural and human-impacted communities in order to get a general picture on how natural communities are influenced by human disturbances.

Publications
Schmera, D & J Podani (2018) Through the jungle of methods quantifying multiple-site resemblance. Ecological Informatics 44: 1–6
Schmera, D, J Podani, Z Botta-Dukát & T Erős (2018) On the reliability of the Elements of Metacommunity Structure framework for separating idealized metacommunity patterns. Ecological Indicators 85: 853–860
Schmera, D. et al. ... (2018) Does isolation influence the relative role of environmental and dispersal-related processes in stream networks? An empirical test of the network position hypothesis using multiple taxa. Freshwater Biology 63: 74-85.
Erős, T. (2017) Scaling fish metacommunities in stream networks: synthesis and future research avenues. Community Ecology 18(1):72-86
Schmera, D (2017) On the operative use of community overlap in analyzing incidence data. Community Ecology 18(1): 117-119

6.3 Land use, diversity and ecosystem functions of soda pans

The soda pans and lakes are worldwide unique ecosystems in the Carpathian Basin, because their extreme physical, chemical conditions, special biogeochemical cycling, trophic web and biotas. Beside their expanse and number dramatically had being decreased (>80%) during the last decade, and they have a high priority importance in the Natura 2000 network of the EU. According to these facts, the main goal of this research to get better knowledge of relationships among the land use, diversity and ecosystem functions of soda pans and their surrounding environment.

Publications
Boros, E, K. V.-Balogh, B. Csitári, L. Vörös, A.J. Székely (2020) Macrophytes and groundwater drive extremely high organic carbon concentration of soda pans. Freshwater Biology. 2020 65:1555–1568.
Boros, E & M Kolpakova (2018) A review of the defining chemical properties of soda lakes and pans: An assessment on a large geographic scale of Eurasian inland saline surface waters. PLoS ONE 13(8): e0202205. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0202205

6.4 Reliability of functioning of natural grasslands

We measure the fine scale spatial patterns of ecosystem functional attributes (e.g. biomass and soil respiration) together with the patterns of diversity in natural grasslands. The spatial and temporal variability of these attributes refers to the reliability of the ecosystem. Low relative variability means high predictability, high consistency, i.e. high reliability. According to our hypothesis the highest reliability appears in community of high structural complexity which are not only rich in species but also well organized in space. In this way we are searching for early warning signals to managers about processes threatening ecosystem services in the future.

Publications
Bartha, S., R. Canullo, S. Chelli & G. Campetella (2020) Unimodal Relationships of Understory Alpha and Beta Diversity along Chronosequence in Coppiced and Unmanaged Beech Forests. Diversity 12(3): 101
Chelli, S., E. Simonetti, Wellstein C. ... S. Bartha & R. Canullo (2019) Effects of climate, soil, forest structure and land use on the functional composition of the understory in Italian forests. J. of Veg. Sci. 30(6): 1110-1121.
Chelli, S., G. Ottaviani, E. Simonetti ... S. Bartha ... G. Campetella (2019) Climate is the main driver of clonal and bud bank traits in Italian forest understories. Perspectives in Plant Ecology, Evolution and Systematics 40: 125478
Kun, R., S. Bartha, Á. Malatinszky, Zs. Molnár, A. Lengyel & B. Dániel (2019) “Everyone does it a bit differently!”: Evidence for a positive relationship between micro-scale land-use diversity and plant diversity in hay meadows. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 283: 106556
Stotz, G.C., J.F. Cahill, J.A. Bennett ... S. Bartha ... M. Zobel & L.H. Fraser (2019) Not a melting pot: Plant species aggregate in their non‐native range. Global Ecology and Biogeography - DOI: 10.1111/geb.13046
Terziyska, T., J.L. Tsakalos, S. Bartha, I. Apostolova, D. Sopotlieva, Z. Zimmermann, G. Szabó & C. Wellstein (2019) Species and functional differences between subalpine grasslands with and without dwarf shrub encroachment. Plant Biosystems, DOI: 10.1080/11263504.2019.1651780

6.5 Spatio-temporal changes of the aquatic biota in riverine ecosystems in the context of climate change, land use and other pressures

Within this topic biomass and functional characteristics of riverine phytoplankton is studied, focusing on the effects of nutrients and solar radiation.

Publications
Abonyi, A, É Ács, A Hidas, I Grigorszky, G Várbíró, G Borics & KT Kiss (2018) Functional diversity of phytoplankton highlights long‐term gradual regime shift in the middle section of the Danube River due to global warming, human impacts and oligotrophication. Freshwater Biology, 63(5), pp.456-472
Bácsi, I, J Deli, S Gonda, I Mészáros, G Veréb, D Dobronoki, SA Nagy, V B-Béres V & G Vasas (2018) Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs initiate morphological changes but inhibit carotenoid accumulation in Haematococcus pluvialis. Algal Research 31: 1-13.
Boda, P, A Móra, G Várbíró, Z Csabai (2018) Livinʼ on the edge: The importance of adjacent intermittent habitats in maintaining macroinvertebrate diversity of permanent freshwater marsh systems. Inland Waters, DOI: 10.1080/20442041.2018.1461969
Bozóki, T, E Krasznai-Kun, A Csercsa, G Várbíró & P Boda (2018) Temporal and spatial dynamics in aquatic macroinvertebrate communities along a small urban stream. Environmental Earth Sciences 77: 559
Lukács Á, Zs Kókai, P Török, I Bácsi, G Borics, G Várbíró, E T-Krasznai, B Tóthmérész & V B-Béres (2018) Colonisation processes in benthic algal communities are well reflected by functional groups. Hydrobiologia 1-15.
Schmera, D. et al. ... (2018) Does isolation influence the relative role of environmental and dispersal-related processes in stream networks? An empirical test of the network position hypothesis using multiple taxa. Freshwater Biology 63: 74-85.
B-Béres, V , P Török, Zs Kókai, Á Lukács, E T-Krasznai, B Tóthmérész & I Bácsi (2017) Ecological background of diatom functional groups: Comparability of classification systems. Ecological Indicators 82: 183-188.
Bolgovics, Á. et al. ... (2017) Phytoplankton of rhithral rivers: Its origin, diversity and possible use for quality-assessment. Ecological Indicators 81:587-596
Kovács, J. ... G. Várbíró ... et al. (2017) The role of annual periodic behavior of water quality parameters in primary production: chlorophyll-a estimation. Ecological Indicators 78: 311-321
Maasz, G, P Takács, P Boda, G Varbiro & Z Pirger (2017) Mayfly and fish species identification and sex determination in bleak (Alburnus alburnus) by MALDI-TOF mass spectrometry . Science of The Total Environment 601-602: 317-325.
Várbíró, G, J Görgényi, B Tóthmérész, J Padisák, É Hajnal & G Borics (2017) Functional redundancy modifies species–area relationship for freshwater phytoplankton. Ecology and Evolution 7(23): 9905-9913