Péter Török

University of Debrecen · Department of Ecology

Grassland managers and scientists are increasingly interested in cost-effective alternative ways of grassland biodiversity conservation. Prescribed burning is a promising management tool which should be integrated in the planning of management efforts. In addition, small-scale prescribed burning is an effective fire suppression strategy to decrease...

Grasslands used to be vital landscape elements throughout Europe. Nowadays, the area of grasslands is dramatically reduced, especially in industrial countries. Grassland restoration is widely applied to increase the naturalness of the landscape and preserve biodiversity. We reviewed the most frequently used restoration techniques (spontaneous succe...

This article introduces a Special Issue on biodiversity of Palaearctic grasslands and provides a synthesis of the current knowledge on this topic. Four major categories of grasslands can be distinguished in the Palaearctic biogeographic realm: (a) zonal steppes (in areas too dry for forests), (b) arctic-alpine grasslands (in areas too cold for fore...

The Palearctic steppe biome ranges from the Mediterranean basin towards China, forming one of the largest continuous terrestrial biomes. The literature on steppe ecology and conservation is vast but scattered and often not available in English. We provide a review of some key topics based on a new definition of steppes, which includes also Mediterr...

In biodiversity conservation of agriculture-driven landscapes, grasslands have an outstanding importance; their conservation became a top priority both in research and practice. In many regions, sheep or cattle grazing are the best options for biodiversity conservation. In our study, we compared the effects of cattle and sheep grazing on short-gras...

The most widespread nature-based solution for mitigating climate change is tree planting. When realized as forest restoration in historically forested biomes, it can efficiently contribute to the sequestration of atmospheric carbon and can also entail significant biodiversity and ecosystem service benefits. Conversely, tree planting in naturally op...

Recent advances in ecology and biogeography demonstrate the importance of fire and large herbivores – and challenge the primacy of climate – to our understanding of the distribution, stability, and antiquity of forests and grasslands. Among grassland ecologists, particularly those working in savannas of the seasonally dry tropics, an emerging fire–...

Species abundance distributions (SADs) link species richness with species abundances and are an important tool in the quantitative analysis of ecological communities. Niche based and sample based SAD models predict different spatial scaling properties of SAD parameters. However, empirical research of SAD scaling properties is largely missing. Here,...

Ranunculus psilostachys is native to the Balkan Peninsula and in Hungary it is currently known from the Villány Mountains and the Nyárád–Harkány Plain. Its origin in Hungary (native vs. introduced) has been debated since it was first discovered in the country. In this paper we provide an overview of the distribution of the species in Europe and Hun...

Trait-based ecology is gaining ground nowadays on species-based ecology: the number of research and publication focusing on the ecological role of taxa instead of the species themselves increased significantly in the last two decades. One great advantage of this approach is that communities with different species composition due to great geographic...

We evaluated the stands of the invasive grass, Sporobolus cryptandrus in its native North American and non‐native European range, where it is a recent invader. Our aim was to reveal how the species’ increasing abundance affects functional diversity and ecosystem service provisioning capacities of plant communities in both ranges. Sand grasslands in...

Abstract The Decade on Ecosystem Restoration aims to provide the means and incentives for upscaling restoration efforts worldwide. Although ecosystem restoration is a broad, interdisciplinary concept, effective ecological restoration requires sound ecological knowledge to successfully restore biodiversity and ecosystem services in degraded landscap...

Naturalness and hemeroby indicator values are specialized species-based indicators used in Continental Europe that reflect plant species’ affinity to degraded habitats. Despite their potential utility for basic and applied science, their similarities have gone unnoticed, and they have yet to be studied together. Here, we combine literature review a...

Although long-distance dispersal (LDD) events are rare and stochastic, they are disproportionately important and drive several large-scale ecological processes; yet, we have a very limited understanding of their frequency, extent and consequences. Humanity intentionally spreads several species, which is associated with the accidental dispersal of o...

Although long-distance dispersal (LDD) events are considered to be rare and highly stochastic, they are disproportionately important and drive several large-scale ecological processes. The realisation of the disproportionate importance of LDD has led to an upsurge in studies of this phenomenon; yet, we still have a very limited understanding of its...

A decrease in habitat amount and connectivity causes immediate or delayed species extinctions in transformed landscapes due to reduced functional connections among populations and altered environmental conditions. We assessed the effects of present and historical grassland amount and connectivity as well as local habitat factors typical of the pres...

One of the main goals of the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030 is to avoid further loss of biodiversity and to restore ecosystems. These efforts can be facilitated by compiling the main research topics related to conservation biology to provide new evidence for the most urgent knowledge gaps, and publicise it to researchers, research funders and po...

The prevailing nature-based solution to tackle climate change is tree planting. However, there is growing evidence that it has serious contraindications in many regions. The main shortcoming of global tree planting is its awareness disparity to alternative ecosystem types, mainly grasslands. Grasslands, where they constitute the natural vegetation,...

Grassland restoration is gaining momentum worldwide to tackle the loss of biodiversity and associated ecosystem services. Restoration methods and their effects on ecological community reassembly have been extensively studied across various grassland types, while the importance of post-restoration management has so far received less attention. Grass...

A fundamental question in community ecology is how the quantity of floral resources affects pollinator activity and how this relates to the structure and robustness of pollination networks. The issue has been mainly addressed at species level, while at community level several questions are still open. Using a species‐rich semi‐natural grassland as...

Restoration of degraded drylands is urgently needed to mitigate climate change, reverse desertification and secure livelihoods for the two billion people who live in these areas. Bold global targets have been set for dryland restoration to restore millions of hectares of degraded land. These targets have been questioned as overly ambitious, but wit...

A full list of affiliations appears at the end of the paper. R estoration ecology is rapidly advancing in response to the ever-expanding global decline in ecosystem integrity and its associated socioeconomic repercussions 1-4. Nowhere are these dynamics more evident than in drylands, which help sustain 39% of the world's human population 5 but rema...

Aims Understanding fine-grain diversity patterns across large spatial extents is fundamental for macroecological research and biodiversity conservation. Using the GrassPlot database, we provide benchmarks of fine-grain richness values of Palaearctic open habitats for vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens and complete vegetation (i.e., the sum of the...

Even though microscopic algae play pivotal role in the healthy functioning of freshwater ecosystems, recent water protection strategies rarely consider them and primarily focus on macroscopic organisms. Here, we studied the effect of protection level and utilization type of lowland standing waters on the composition and diversity of benthic diatom...

For the effective control of an invasive species, gathering as much information as possible on its ecology, establishment and persistence in the subjected communities is of utmost importance. We aimed to review the current distribution and characteristics of Sporobolus cryptandrus (sand dropseed), an invasive C4 grass species of North American orig...

Aims We tested the establishment success of grassland species in the presence or absence of zoochory by livestock and identified the traits associated with successful establishment. Location Hortobágy National Park, Hungary. Methods In six restored species-poor grasslands we established two species-rich 16 m²-sized source plots per site in 2013....

Questions: Species-area relationships (SARs) are fundamental for understanding biodiversity patterns and are generally well described by a power law with a constant exponent z. However, z-values sometimes vary across spatial scales. We asked whether there is a general scale dependence of z-values at fine spatial grains and which potential drivers i...

Previous studies found that pedunculate oak, one of the most widespread and abundant species in European deciduous forests, regenerates in open habitats and forest edges, but not in closed forest interiors. However, these observations usually come from the core areas of the biome, and much less is known about such processes at its arid boundary, wh...

The present paper is the 13th in a series of papers contributing new floristic data to complement the distribution maps of Atlas Florae Hungariae. We present altogether 1307 new occurrence data to advance our knowledge of the distribution of vascular plants in Hungary. New data are presented for 634 vascular plant species from 256 flora mapping qua...

Grasslands contribute greatly to biodiversity and human livelihoods; they support 70% of the world's agricultural area, but are heavily degraded by human land‐use. Grassland restoration research and management receives less attention than forests or freshwater habitats, although grasslands are critical for sustaining ecosystems multifunctionality a...

This report summarizes the activities and achievements of the Eurasian Dry Grassland Group (EDGG) from July 2019 to December 2020. During this period, Covid-19 allowed only one live event, the 14th EDGG Field Workshop to the alpine vegetation of Switzerland, organised ad hoc as a replacement for the cancelled Field Workshop in the Ukrainian steppes...

The present part of the series provides miscellaneous new records of 15 taxa of vascular plants from Hungary. New chorological records are provided here: Androsace maxima, Helminthia echioides and Hypericum elegans are new for the 'Közép-Tisza-vidék', Helminthia echioides is also new to the 'Duna-sík', Aphanes arvensis and Medicago rigidula are new...

Temperate deciduous forests dominated by oaks cover extensive areas in European lowlands. These ecosystems have been under intense anthropogenic use for millennia, thus their natural dynamics, and their regeneration in particular, is still not well understood. Previous studies found that pedunculate oak ( Quercus robur ), one of the most widespread...

Palaearctic steppes are among the largest continuous terrestrial natural habitats of the world with high biodiversity at multiple scales. Steppe grasslands and adjacent forest steppes are characteristic landscape elements from Central and Eastern Europe to Northern China across the whole temperate zone of Eurasia with some floristically similar reg...

Grasslands are spontaneously occurring herbaceous vegetation types that are mostly dominated by grasses or other graminoids and have usually more than 10% herb-layer cover, while woody species area absent or have a significantly lower abundance than the herbs. In Palaearctic biogeographic realm natural and secondary grasslands (76% and 24% of all g...

Agricultural intensification has resulted in severe declines in the extent and diversity of seminatural habitats in Europe, whereas the extent of secondary habitats has increased considerably. River embankments have become one of the most extensive and widespread secondary habitats in former floodplains. We compared the diversity patterns of second...

Sowing grasses supports the rapid development of a closed perennial vegetation, which makes the method universally suitable for fast and effective landscape‐scale restoration of grasslands. However, to increase their diversity and to create a natural‐like species‐rich grassland is a challenging task. Understanding the role of seed bank compositiona...

Questions Plant invasions are considered among the biggest threats to biodiversity worldwide. In a full‐factorial greenhouse experiment we analysed the effect of soil burial depth and litter cover on the germination of invasive plants. We hypothesised that (i) burial depth and litter cover affect the germination of the studied species, (ii) the eff...

Drainage canals are ubiquitous components of agricultural landscapes worldwide. Although canals have greatly contributed to biodiversity loss by desiccating wetlands, they have recently attracted conservation attention due to their potential to function as refugia for native wetland-dependent species in intensively managed landscapes. However, thei...

Featuring a transitional zone between closed forests and treeless steppes, forest-steppes cover vast areas, and have outstanding conservation importance. The components of this mosaic ecosystem can conveniently be classified into two basic types, forests and grasslands. However, this dichotomic classification may not fit reality as habitat organiza...

The Nostoc genus is a well-known heterocytous, filamentous cyanobacterium which can be found all over the world. The size of terrestrial and/or freshwater colonies can be microscopic and macroscopic as well. In addition, Nostoc species are one of the most common photosynthetic cyanobacterial partners in symbiotic interactions. Terrestrial cyanobact...

For 491 vascular plant species we provide original data of five leaf traits: fresh mass, dry mass, leaf area (LA), specific leaf area (SLA) and leaf dry matter content (LDMC). We are focusing on species that are rare and/or endemic to the Pannonian Ecoregion. We provide data on more than 200 species, which are not yet included in the TRY database....

Woody plants in water‐limited ecosystems affect their environment on multiple scales: locally, natural stands can create islands of fertility for herb layer communities compared to open habitats, but afforestation has been shown to negatively affect regional water balance and productivity. Despite these contrasting observations, no coherent multisc...

Sowing of grass seed mixtures is a feasible and cost‐effective method for landscape‐scale grassland restoration. However, sowing only grasses usually leads to species‐poor and dense swards, where the establishment of target forbs is hampered by microsite and propagule limitation. To overcome these limitations and increase the diversity of species‐p...

Sowing of grass seed mixtures is a feasible and cost-effective method for landscape-scale grassland restoration. However, sowing only grasses usually leads to species-poor and dense grass sward, where the establishment of target forbs is hampered both by microsite and propagule limitation. To overcome these limitations and increase the diversity of...

For the improvement and maintenance of the desirable ecological value of grasslands it is necessary to manage them in a way which maintains their structure and their long-term functioning. Extensive grazing plays a crucial role in the seasonal biomass removal, thereby it prevents litter accumulation and shrub encroachment. Defoliation and biomass r...

Sowing grass seeds generally supports the rapid development of a closed perennial vegetation, which makes the method universally suitable for fast and effective landscape-scale restoration of grasslands. However, sustaining the recovered grasslands, and increasing their diversity is a challenging task. Understanding the role of seed bank compositio...

Woody plants in water-limited ecosystems affect their environment on multiple scales: locally, natural stands can create islands of fertility for herb layer communities compared to open habitats, but afforestation has been shown to negatively affect regional water balance and productivity. Despite these contrasting observations, no coherent multisc...

Featuring a transitional zone between closed forests and treeless steppes, forest-steppes cover vast areas and have outstanding conservation importance. The components of this mosaic ecosystem can conveniently be classified into two basic types, forests and grasslands. However, this dichotomic classification may not fit reality as habitat organizat...

Questions: Plant invasions are considered among the biggest threats to biodiversity worldwide. In a full-factorial greenhouse experiment we analysed the effect of soil burial depth and litter cover on the germination of invasive plants. We hypothesised that (i) burial depth and litter cover affect the germination of the studied species, (ii) the ef...