Eszter Ruprecht

Babeş-Bolyai University | UBB · Faculty of Biology and Geology

The class Montio-Cardaminetea includes vegetation of springs with constant water flow. These habitats, which function as islands for highly specialized and sensitive biota, are endangered by ongoing landscape and climatic changes. Although a harmonized classification into vegetation units is necessary for effective habitat conservation, there is cu...

Intra-continental range-expansion of native species tracking human-induced environmental changes has become an important phenomenon, and recently has been suggested to be recognized as a distinct biogeographic category, namely neonative. However, it remains difficult to analyze how range-expansions are triggered by certain environmental changes and...

Motivation: Indicator values are numerical values used to characterize the ecological niches of species and to estimate their occurrence along gradients. Indicator values on climatic and edaphic niches of plant species have received considerable attention in ecological research, whereas data on the optimal positioning of species along disturbance g...

Abstract Motivation: Indicator values are numerical values used to characterize the ecological niches of species and to estimate their occurrence along gradients. Indicator values on climatic and edaphic niches of plant species have received considerable attention in ecological research, whereas data on the optimal positioning of species along dist...

The importance of environmental difference among sites and dispersal limitations of species to the explanation of diversity differs among biological systems and geographical regions. We hypothesized that climate and then dispersal limitation will predominantly explain the similarity of alpine vegetation at increasing distances between pairs of regi...

Hybridization followed by introgression is common between European Crataegus species, while hybrids of numerous sympatric taxa are abundant and widespread in several natural and seminatural environments. No study to the present day has compared the development of Crataegus species and their hybrids in their seedling stage. Our aim was to compare se...

Aim The number of naturalized (i.e. established) alien species has increased rapidly over recent centuries. Given the differences in environmental tolerances among species, little is known about what factors determine the extent to which the observed size of the naturalized range of a species and hence the extent to which the observed richness of n...

Aims Biodiversity is traditionally studied mostly at the species level, but biogeographical and macroecological studies at higher taxonomic levels can provide valuable insights into the evolutionary processes at large spatial scales. Our aim was to assess the representation of vascular plant families within different vegetation formations across Eu...

Aims: Semi‐natural grasslands are among the most biodiverse habitats in Europe, and they are of great conservation and agricultural value. However, changes in land‐use like grazing intensification and the cessation of traditional management have dramatic effects on the extent and biodiversity of these ecosystems. In this study we investigated how c...

Aim Alpine habitats support unique biodiversity confined to high‐elevation areas in the current interglacial. Plant diversity in these habitats may respond to area, environment, connectivity and isolation, yet these factors have been rarely evaluated in concert. Here we investigate major determinants of regional species pools in alpine grasslands,...

Questions Germination is the prerequisite of successful establishment in plant communities and is influenced by many factors. Therefore, seeds are under strong selective pressure to sense and integrate information about their environment and modulate germination based on them. In this study, we focus on interspecific seed‐seed interactions under op...

Background and aims: Fruit heteromorphism is considered to be a bet-hedging strategy to cope with spatially or temporally heterogeneous environments. The different behaviours of the fruit morphs of the same species might also be beneficial during naturalization, once the species has been introduced to a new range. Yet, no study to date has tested...

Questions: Vegetation-plot records provide information on presence and cover or abundance of plants co-occurring in the same community. Vegetation-plot data are spread across research groups, environmental agencies and biodiversity research centers, and thus, are rarely accessible at continental or global scales. Here we present the sPlot database,...

Questions (i) In which ways do woody species encroachment and fire affect vegetation and seed bank composition, structure and diversity in Transylvanian dry grassland, (ii) do native and non‐native woody species differ with respect to their impact on grassland community composition and structure, (iii) is burning useful to control woody species enc...

Worldwide reforestation has been recommended as a landscape restoration strategy to mitigate climate change in areas where the climate can sustain forest. This approach may threaten grassland ecosystems of unique biodiversity as such policies are based on the false assumption that most grasslands are man-made. Here, we use multiple lines of evidenc...

GrassPlot is a collaborative vegetation-plot database organised by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) and listed in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD ID EU-00-003). GrassPlot collects plot records (relevés) from grasslands and other open habitats of the Palaearctic biogeographic realm. It focuses on precisely delimited plots...

This report describes the Romanian Grassland Database (RGD), registered under EU-RO-008 in the Global Index of Vegetation-Plot Databases (GIVD). This collaborative initiative aims at collecting all available vegetation-plot data (relevés) of grasslands and other open habitats from the territory of Romania and providing them for science, nationally...

Stipa-dominated steppe-like dry grasslands represent a great nature conservation priority in Romania and in the whole European Union. In Romania, due to their low productivity, many sites had been afforested by pines or black locust trees at the end of the 1950's in order to raise economic value and to hinder landslides on the steep slopes. Economi...

Traditional farming landscapes in the temperate zone that have persisted for millennia can be exceptionally species-rich and are therefore key conservation targets. In contrast to Europe’s West, Eastern Europe harbours widespread traditional farming landscapes, but drastic socio-economic and political changes in the twentieth century are likely to...

Questions Are there interspecific differences in resprouting after cutting and burning among woody species encroaching temperate grasslands? Are alien woody species more successful than natives in their resprouting after the two treatments proposed to control shrub encroachment? Is resprouting influenced by age of the individuals? Does resprouting...

Questions: What are the main floristic patterns in the Pannonian and western Pontic steppe grasslands? What are the diagnostic species of the major subdivisions of the class Festuco- Brometea (temperate Eurosiberian dry and semi-dry grasslands)? Location: Carpathian Basin (E Austria, SE Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, N Croat...

Appendix?S1. List of aggregated species.

Appendix?S7. Full synoptic table of the Festuco?Brometea.

Appendix?S3. Diagnostic species of the classes Festuco?Brometea, Molinio?Arrhenatheretea, Nardetea strictae, Koelerio?Corynephoretea and Elyno?Seslerietea following the EuroVegChecklist.

Appendix?S6. Fidelity, constancy and average cover of species in the three Festuco?Brometea orders.

Appendix?S2. Indicator species of steppe grasslands.

Appendix?S4. Synoptic table of the TWINSPAN classification.

Appendix?S5. Average percentage cover of the diagnostic species of five grassland classes in the TWINSPAN clusters.

Appendix?S8. Data sources of the Festuco?Brometea relev?s.

Abstract Questions: What are the main floristic patterns in the Pannonian and western Pontic steppe grasslands? What are the diagnostic species of the major subdivisions of the class Festuco-Brometea (temperate Euro-Siberian dry and semi-dry grasslands)? Location: Carpathian Basin (E Austria, SE Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia,...

Here we present an extensive overview of plant diversity values in Palaearctic grasslands for seven standard grain sizes from 0.0001 to 100 m². The data originate from 20 studies, including the Field Workshops of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG), ranging geographically from Spain in the west to Siberia in the east, from Sicily in the south t...

This is the first version of the open-access dataset of "normal plant species richness" data in Palaearctic grasslands across 7 spatial scales (0.0001-100 m²), compiled by the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG; www.edgg.org). Minimum, mean and maximum values for total plant species richness, vascular plant species richness, non-vascular plant spec...

Although several invasive species have induced changes to the fire regime of invaded communities, potential intraspecific shifts in fire-related traits that might enhance the invasion success of these species have never been addressed. We assumed that traits conferring persistence and competitiveness in postfire conditions to downy brome, a quintes...

Anatomical and morphological seed traits are of great ecological importance and are a main subject of, for example, seed bank or endozoochory studies. However, we observed a lack of information about the relationship between seed anatomy and seed morphology and its ecological implications. To fill this gap, we linked the anatomical features of dias...

Significant proportion of crop lands have been abandoned as management strategies have changed in Central and Eastern Europe in the past decades. The study of insect versus plant communities on such areas could help us understand how these processes take place, and whether these communities return to a close-to-natural state. Amongst insects ants,...

Background: Ecological indicator values (EIVs) have a long tradition in vegetation ecological research in Europe. EIVs characterise the ecological optimum of species along major environmental gradients using ordinal scales. Calculating mean indicator values per plot is an effective way of bioindication. Following first systems in Russia and Central...

Aims: To present the status of the Romanian Grassland Database (RGD) and to attract scientists both to contribute and use data from it. Location: Romania. Methods: We started to compile a vegetation-plot database, with the aim to ultimately cover all grassland vegetation types and other herbaceous communities from the territory of Romania. Work on...

The European Vegetation Archive (EVA) has been developed since 2012 by the IAVS Working Group European Vegetation Survey as a centralized database of European vegetation plots. It stores copies of national and regional vegetation-plot databases on a single software platform. Data storage in EVA does not affect the ongoing independent development of...

Abstract Data on the current distribution and status of alien freshwater plants in the ESENIAS countries were compiled from the literature, herbarium records and the personal knowledge of regional specialists. The focus of this work was on plants which are able to grow with their roots permanently in water, rather than including the large numbers o...

Prescribed burning is an important management tool in many parts of the world. While natural fires generally occur during the driest and warmest period of the year, prescribed burning is often timed out-of-season, when there is higher soil moisture and lower biomass combustibility. However, fire season may influence seedling recruitment after fire,...

The impact of invasive species on native plant communities can strongly depend on habitat disturbances. Thus, the joint study of invasion and disturbances are necessary to distinguish whether invasive species (1) are just ‘passengers’ of major environmental changes, (2) are the real cause (drivers) of native species decline, or (3) do disturbances...

Question: Do restoration measures involving yearly biomass removal over 9 yr have a beneficial effect on the structure and composition of long-term abandoned European steppe-like grassland? What is the effect of a single accidental fire event on this grassland community? Location: Continental dry steppe-like grassland, Suatu and Puini, Transylvania...

Prescribed burning is an important tool for nature conservation in many parts of the world. It is now also being increasingly proposed as an alternative to traditional management in temperate grasslands that are not naturally fire-prone. For effective biodiversity conservation, accurate knowledge about species responses to fire is indispensable. Pl...

Genetic diversity is important for species' fitness and evolutionary processes but our knowledge on how it varies across a species distribution range is limited. The abundant centre hypothesis (ACH) predicts that populations become smaller and more isolated towards the geographic range periphery - a pattern that in turn should be associated with de...

The role of phenotypic plasticity in plant invasions is among the most often discussed relationships in invasion ecology. However, despite the large number of studies on this topic, there is little consistency. Reconsideration of the role of plasticity by distinguishing two substantially distinct traitgroups, performance traits (contributing direct...

Adaptive transgenerational plasticity (TGP), i.e., significantly higher fitness when maternal and offspring conditions match, might contribute to the population growth of non-native species in highly variable environments. However, comparative studies that directly test this hypothesis are lacking. Therefore, we performed a reciprocal split-brood e...

Im gemäßigten Europa ist Feuer kein integraler Faktor in terrestrischen Ökosystemen, dennoch wurde kontrolliertes Abbrennen als eine Alternative zu traditionellem Management von Grasländern vorgeschlagen. Damit bedeuten vom Menschen gelegte Feuer eine ernste Herausforderung für Pflanzenarten, und es gibt keine Kenntnisse dazu, wie die Verjüngung de...

Zusammenfassung Der diesjährige 8. Trockenrasen-Sonderteil von Tuexenia beginnt mit einen Bericht über die aktuel-len Aktivitäten der European Dry Grassland Group (EDGG). Zunächst geben wir einen Überblick über die Entwicklung der Mitgliederzahl und den aktuellen Vorstand, der im Mai 2013 gewählt wurde. Dann berichten wir vom letzten European Dry G...

In the present paper we report original thousand-seed weight data for the flora of the Pannonian Basin. Our goal was to demonstrate the usefulness of seed weight databases by analysing seed weight data in relation to social behaviour types and life forms. We specifically asked the following questions: (i) how the seed weights are related to social...

Competition from native species is a key mechanism for biotic resistance to invasion. Accelerated germination to pre-empt resources or delayed germination and induced dormancy until the next growing season are two alternative strategies for annual invasive plants to avoid the drawbacks of competition at the seed stage. In Ambrosia artemisiifolia, b...

The transfer of freshly cut seed-containing plant material is a widely applied method to re-establish grassland of high biodiversity. Still, the amount of plant material applied varies greatly across restoration projects. Therefore, we set up a two-year common garden experiment where we assessed the effect of plant material amount (0, 400, 800, 160...

After direct habitat transformation, biological invasions are considered to be the second most important threat to biodiversity. A better understanding of the factors affecting invasion success in new areas is crucial, and may provide insight into potential control actions. We hypothesized that invasion risk increases in habitats undergoing a sudde...

A highly selfing breeding system affects gene flow, which may have consequences for patterns of genetic variation and differentiation on both the population and species level. Feather grasses (Stipa spp.) are dominant elements of Eurasian steppes that persist in Central Europe in scattered isolated populations that are of great conservation interes...

In the present paper we report original thousand-seed weight data for the flora of the Pan-nonian Basin. Our goal was to demonstrate the usefulness of seed weight databases by analysing seed weight data in relation to social behaviour types and life forms. We specifically asked the following questions: (i) how the seed weights are related to social...