Habitat fragmentation is considered one of the most severe threatening factors for global biodiversity. Here we assessed, how local and landscape scale environmental variables, such as fragment size (small vs. large) configuration (measured connectivity index) relates to bird community composition, species richness, abundance functional diversity. We surveyed 60 grassland fragments in Hungary, ...

The dramatic decline of the abundance farmland bird species can be related to level land-use intensity or land-cover heterogeneity rural landscapes. Our study area in central Europe (Hungary) included 3049 skylark observation points and their 600 m buffer zones. We used a very detailed map (20 × 20 minimum mapping unit), Hungarian Ecosystem Basemap, as dataset for calculation three landscape in...

The “Europe 2020 Strategy” launched by European Institutions is a commitment to increase growth based on the coexistence of both competitiveness and sustainable development. This paper analyzes the competitiveness of production systems in the cereal steppes of Castile, Spain. An indicator based on each production system’s profitability threshold was built. The diagnostic analysis methodology al...

There are two competing hypotheses for the origin of the Indo-European language family. The conventional view places the homeland in the Pontic steppes about 6000 years ago. An alternative hypothesis claims that the languages spread from Anatolia with the expansion of farming 8000 to 9500 years ago. We used Bayesian phylogeographic approaches, together with basic vocabulary data from 103 ancien...

Two new megadrile earthworms from the steppes, the first species wholly from Outer Mongolia, are ascribed to the partially parthenogenetic Eisenia nordenskioldi (Eisen, 1879) species-complex. Taxonomic justification of sympatric Eisenia nordenskioldi mongol and Eisenia nordenskioldi onon ssp. n. are supported by mtDNA COI barcodes. The unreliability of molecular differentiation based on voucher...

Over the period 2006–2010, 40 species of primary parasitoids belonging to eleven genera were found and reared from 50 species of host aphids, from a total of 106 host plants collected from 62 localities all around Slovenia. Over 230 tritrophic associations have been reviewed, including four associations which are reported for the first time; Ephedrus plagiator/ Staticobium limonii/ Limonium ang...

A two-year study was conducted in a conservation area of the Ventania hill system where Pampean grassy steppes and their headwater springs maintain conditions close to natural ones. The composition structure Chironomidae (Insecta: Diptera) along two short pristine streams relationship with physicochemical variables were analyzed. total 15444 individuals belonging 37 species four subfamilies ide...