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We present PADAPT 1.0, the Pannonian Database of Plant Traits which relies on regional data sources and integrates existing data and new measurements on a wide range of traits and attributes of the plant species of the Pannonian Biogeographical Region and makes it freely accessible atwww.padapt.eu. The current version covers the species of the region occurring in Hungary (cc. 90% of the region’s flora) and consists of 126,337 records on 2745 taxa. There are 53 plant attributes in PADAPT 1.0 organised in six major groups: (i) Habitus and strategy, (ii) Reproduction, (iii) Kariology, (iv) Distribution and conservation, (v) Ecological indicator values, and (vi) Leaf traits. By including species of the eastern part of Europe not covered by other databases, PADAPT can facilitate studying the flora and vegetation of the eastern part of the continent. Data collection will continue in the future and the PADAPT team welcomes researchers interested in contributing with data. The main task before an updated version of the database is to include species of the Pannonian region not covered by the current version. In conclusion, although data coverage is far from complete, PADAPT meets the longstanding need for a regional database of the Pannonian flora.

Highlights • Nutrient concentration thresholds based on pressure-response models are needed for management. • Nutrient thresholds were derived from relationships of phytoplankton and macrophytes against nutrients. • Very shallow eastern continental lakes do not demonstrate a strong response to nutrients. • Fish stocking is the dominant pressure in these highly eutrophic shallow lakes. • These understudied lakes challenge the dominant paradigm of lake assessment and management. Nutrient targets based on pressure-response models are essential for defining ambitions and managing eutrophication. However, the scale of biogeographical variation in these pressure-response relationships is poorly understood, which may hinder eutrophication management in regions where lake ecology is less intensively studied. In this study, we derive ecology-based nutrient targets for five major ecoregions of Europe: Northern, Central-Baltic, Alpine, Mediterranean and Eastern Continental. As a first step, we developed regressions between nutrient concentrations and ecological quality ratios (EQR) based on phytoplankton and macrophyte communities. Significant relationships were established for 13 major lake types; in most cases, these relationships were stronger for phosphorus than for nitrogen, and stronger for phytoplankton than for macrophytes. Using these regressions, we estimated the total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) concentrations at which lakes of different types are likely to achieve good ecological status. However, in the very shallow lakes of the Eastern Continental region, relations between nutrient and biological communities were weak or non-significant. This can be attributed to high nutrient concentrations (in the asymptotic zone of phosphorus-phytoplankton models) suggesting other factors (light, grazing) limit primary production. However, we also show that fish stocking is a major pressure on Eastern Continental lakes, negatively affecting ecological status: lakes with low fish stocking show low chlorophyll-a concentrations and good ecological status despite high nutrient levels, while the lakes with high fish stocking show high chlorophyll-a and low ecological status. This study highlights the need to better understand lakes in biogeographic regions that have been, for historical reasons, less studied. This, in turn, helps reveal factors that challenge the dominant paradigms of lake assessment and management.

The expansion of alien plant species is of global concern, yet our understanding of their dispersal mechanisms is limited, especially regarding the role of migratory birds. We hypothesize that invasiveness of alien wetland plants might depend on specific adaptations that ensure high seed survival in the digestive tract of waterfowl, ensuring their efficient spread across sites. In a controlled feeding experiment, we compared the endozoochorous dispersal ability of twelve congeneric alien and native wetland plant species, with a particular focus on seed passage rate, gut retention time, germinability, and time to germination. Germination dynamics were also compared to those of control seeds. Finally, we test how seed traits explain the observed differences. Gut passage rate was higher and time to germination faster, but retention time and germinability were lower in alien than in native species. Controlling for seed traits did not alter these conclusions. Among control seeds, aliens germinated faster and their germinability was higher than in natives. Seed traits explained differences in germinability but not time to germination in control seeds. Our results indicate that endozoochory provides competitive advantage to alien plants by ensuring higher propagule pressure in new environments, potentially ensuring their quick spread.

Priority‐area selection is a core phase of systematic conservation planning, often carried out using a single (surrogate) taxon. Efficient surrogates are expected to yield taxonomically representative priority areas that embrace the populations not only of the surrogate but also the surrogated taxa. Compared with the terrestrial realm, surrogacy performance of riverine taxa has received much less attention. This study compared the surrogacy performance of fishes (FI), macrophytes (MP), and benthic macroinvertebrates (MI) in terms of total area, connectedness, spatial congruence, and taxonomic representativeness of priority areas in the Middle Danube basin (Hungary). Setting three target values for each surrogate group, nine area prioritization designs were run by using a purpose‐written connectivity‐centric algorithm to emphasize the importance of longitudinal connectivity. FI provided the smallest, MP the intermediate, and MI the largest priority areas or solutions. Connectedness was greatest for FI, being one order of magnitude higher than for the other two groups. Pairwise spatial congruence was highest between FI and MP, lowest between MP and MI, and intermediate for FI and MI. MI yielded the most representative solutions, although the number of occurrences of the surrogated taxa in the solution, as a criterion of representation, modified the ratio of the taxa represented. Areas compiled from the overlapping parts of the surrogate‐specific priority sets proved to be smaller than, and similarly representative of, single‐taxon solutions. Taxon‐rich groups such as MI can serve as efficient surrogates, but that can result in larger solutions than for less taxon‐rich surrogates. Apart from the size, the compactness of the solutions seems to be determined by the identity of the surrogate taxa, and FI can be alternative surrogates in connectivity‐centric prioritization. At the same time, multi‐group approaches can enhance the robustness of area prioritization in terms of representativeness compared with single‐taxon procedures.

The synergy between climate change, eutrophication, and biological invasion is threatening for native submerged plants in many ways. The response of submerged plants to these changes is a key factor that determines the outcome of biological invasion. In order to explain the invasion successes, we investigated the combined effects of climate change and eutrophication-related environmental factors (temperature, light, and nutrients) on the trait responses of a native (

Background Documenting local ecological knowledge (LEK) has recently become a topic of considerable interest. LEK can contribute to various areas of ecology, including habitat management and conservation biology. It has been recently revealed that recreational fishers’ ecological knowledge (FEK) can also provide valuable information about different organisms and habitats, while recreational fishers’ ecological knowledge is understudied in many aspects and regions of the world. Methods We aimed to record Hungarian recreational FEK on plant species related to freshwater habitats. Our research was conducted in three regularly fished water bodies in Hungary, namely Lake Velence, Keleti Main Canal, and Lake Látóképi, where a total of 72 interviews were conducted with recreational anglers. During interviews, 24 plant species occurring at freshwater habitats with common or sporadic distribution were shown to anglers as single species or in congeneric pairs. Miscellaneous plant-related knowledge of anglers was also collected. Results Anglers identified a total of 16 plant species. They used 45 botanical or folk names. An angler knew the name of 4.6 plants on average and recognized 7.4 other species without naming it. According to our detailed analysis, anglers were able to name or at least recognize those plant species which are somehow related to fishing activities, are salient, and/or common. Moreover, anglers at Lake Velence recognized less plant species; however, they also had less years of fishing experience compared to anglers of the other two locations. Conclusion We found that recreational FEK exists even in the case of freshwater plants which are not the main focus of anglers. It is highly presumable that recreational fishers would be able to provide reliable ecologically related data for scientific research establishing future citizen science projects of nature conservation.

QUESTIONS: The majority of theories of trait‐based plant community assembly have been developed and tested predominantly in terrestrial ecosystems. Studies investigating the functional trait composition of aquatic plant communities and their relation to environmental determinants remain scarce. Macrophytes are essential components of aquatic ecosystems, and a more detailed knowledge of their trait‐based assembly is crucial for their management. We identified how plant functional traits respond to environmental gradients in streams and rivers. LOCATION: Danube River Catchment, Hungary. METHODS: We studied the processes governing community assembly along major environmental gradients related to carbon‐ and nutrient‐limiting factors as well as physical strain. We used six continuous traits (leaf area, specific leaf area, leaf dry matter content, seed weight, seed shape, woodiness) and calculated community‐weighted mean and standardised effect size of functional diversity for each community. We then used stepwise regression analyses for each trait along the environmental gradients to test which environmental factors explain the changes in community‐weighted mean and functional diversity. All analyses were conducted for aquatic (hydato‐helophyte) and riverbank species separately. RESULTS: We found that the effect of environmental filtering significantly increased toward higher pH, indicating the response of functional traits to carbon limitation. Our results showed trait convergence among riverbank species in rivers with higher productivity. Larger functional diversity (i.e., trait divergence) among hydato‐helophyte species suggests an increase in the diversity of resource acquisition strategies under higher productivity. CONCLUSIONS: Here, we have shown that the functional trait distribution of aquatic and riverbank plant communities responds to major environmental drivers related to nutrient and carbon availability. The understanding of how community assembly mechanisms varied along environmental gradients might be useful when proposing future management and restoration plans and actions towards the conservation of the aquatic vegetation in streams and rivers.

Nymphaea lotus L. is a tropical and subtropical species of waterlilies with an African distribution. A conspicuous satellite occurrence can be found in Europe in a thermal spring in NW Romania. This population (treated as var. thermalis (DC.) Tuzson) received much attention as a potential Tertiary relict in the flora of Europe, although its relict vs. planted nature has been part of great debate among scholars during the last 200 years. We revisit this question by using molecular phylogenetic methods to estimate the timing of divergence of this species, and put this population into a phylogeographic context by comparing it to samples coming from the whole area of the species. By using sequences of the nuclear and the plastid genome, we reconstructed the phylogeographic relationships within N. lotus with a haplotype network building approach, that identified a genetically distant lineage in western Africa, which we relate to N. zenkeri Gilg, the sister species of N. lotus. All the populations of N. lotus s.str. displayed genetic distance between each other except for the Egyptian and Romanian populations. On our dated phylogeny of the subgenus Lotus the separation between N. lotus and its sister species was found to be younger than the end of the Tertiary (1.26 Mya). These results clearly refute the Tertiary relict status of the European population of N. lotus.

The present part of the series provides new records of locally introduced native species in Hungary (Apium repens, Crypsis schoenoides, Limonium gmelinii, Rumex confertus, Sagina apetala). The spread of Crypsis schoenoides and Limonium gmelinii on roadsides is due to winter salting of roads, whereas the appearance of Apium repens and Sagina apetala is likely the consequence of the use of soil or peat material containing their seeds. The reports of Knautia dipsacifolia from the northern part of the Great Hungarian Plain and Spiraea crenata from the Hungarian–Romanian–Ukrainian border region is ascertained here concluding that the report of the first taxon was based on a misidentifi cation of K. drymeia, whereas the record of Spiraea crenata is a consequence of mislocation. New records of two spreading aliens (Eragrostis virescens, Sporobolus vaginifl orus) are discussed here along with a herbarium revision of Eragrostis, which showed that all previous Hungarian records of Eragrostis parvifl ora refer to E. virescens. Further species discussed in the paper escaped from cultivation (Asparagus verticillatus, Euphorbia characias, Nassella tenuissima, the latter two new for the country). The first record of the sedge hybrid Carex ×leutzii in Hungary is also presented.

Understanding the variation in community composition and species abundances, i.e., β-diversity, is at the heart of community ecology. A common approach to examine β-diversity is to evaluate directional turnover in community composition by measuring the decay in the similarity among pairs of communities along spatial or environmental distances. We provide the first global synthesis of taxonomic and functional distance decay along spatial and environmental distance by analysing 149 datasets comprising different types of organisms and environments. We modelled an exponential distance decay for each dataset using generalized linear models and extracted r2 and slope to analyse the strength and the rate of the decay. We studied whether taxonomic or functional similarity has stronger decay across the spatial and environmental distances. We also unveiled the factors driving the rate of decay across the datasets, including latitude, spatial extent, realm, and organismal features. Taxonomic distance decay was stronger along spatial and environmental distances compared with functional distance decay. The rate of taxonomic spatial distance decay was the fastest in the datasets from mid-latitudes while the rate of functional decay increased with latitude. Overall, datasets covering larger spatial extents showed a lower rate of decay along spatial distances but a higher rate of decay along environmental distances. Marine ecosystems had the slowest rate of decay. This synthesis is an important step towards a more holistic understanding of patterns and drivers of taxonomic and functional β-diversity.

Environmental filtering and limiting similarity are those locally acting processes that influence community structure. These mechanisms acting on the traits of species result in trait convergence or divergence within the communities. The role of these processes might change along environmental gradients, and it has been conceptualised in the stress-dominance hypothesis, which predicts that the relative importance of environmental filtering increases and competition decreases with increasing environmental stress. Analysing trait convergence and divergence in lake phytoplankton assemblages, we studied how the concepts of ‘limiting similarity’ versus ‘environmental filtering’ can be applied to these microscopic aquatic communities, and how they support or contradict the stress-dominance hypothesis. Using a null model approach, we investigated the divergence and convergence of phytoplankton traits along environmental gradients represented by canonical axes of an RDA. We used Rao’s quadratic entropy as a measure of functional diversity and calculated effect size (ES) values for each sample. Negative ES values refer to trait convergence, i.e., to the higher probability of the environmental filtering in community assembly, while positive values indicate trait divergence, stressing the importance of limiting similarity (niche partitioning), that is, the competition between the phytoplankters. Our results revealed that limiting similarity and environmental filtering may operate simultaneously in phytoplankton communities, but these assembly mechanisms influenced the distribution of phytoplankton traits differently, and the effects show considerable changes along with the studied scales. Studying the changes of ES values along with the various scales, our results partly supported the stress-dominance hypothesis, which predicts that the relative importance of environmental filtering increases and competition decreases with increasing environmental stress.

In this study we performed the comprehensive pharmacological analysis of two stereoisomers of 4-chloro-meta-cresol (4CMC), a popular ryanodine receptor (RyR) agonist used in muscle research. Experiments investigating the Ca2+-releasing action of the isomers demonstrated that the most potent isomer was 4-chloro-orto-cresol (4COC) (EC50 = 55 ± 14 μM), although 3-chloro-para-cresol (3CPC) was more effective, as it was able to induce higher magnitude of Ca2+ flux from isolated terminal cisterna vesicles. Nevertheless, 3CPC stimulated the hydrolytic activity of the sarcoplasmic reticulum ATP-ase (SERCA) with an EC50 of 91 ± 17 μM, while 4COC affected SERCA only in the millimolar range (IC50 = 1370 ± 88 μM). IC50 of 4CMC for SERCA pump was 167 ± 8 μM, indicating that 4CMC is not a specific RyR agonist either, as it activated RyR in a similar concentration (EC50 = 121 ± 20 μM). Our data suggest that the use of 4COC might be more beneficial than 4CMC in experiments, when Ca2+ release should be triggered through RyRs without influencing SERCA activity.

Documenting the patterns of biological diversity on Earth has always been a central challenge in macroecology and biogeography. However, for the diverse group of freshwater plants, such research program is still in its in- fancy. Here, we examined global variation in taxonomic, functional and phylogenetic beta diversity patterns of lake macrophytes using regional data from six continents. A data set of ca. 480 lake macrophyte community ob- servations, together with climatic, geographical and environmental variables, was compiled across 16 regions worldwide. We (a) built the very first phylogeny comprising most freshwater plant lineages; (b) exploited a wide array of functional traits that are important to macrophyte autoecology or that relate to lake ecosystem functioning; (c) assessed if different large-scale beta diversity patterns show a clear latitudinal gradient from the equator to the poles using null models; and (d) employed evolutionary and regression models to first identify the degree to which the studied functional traits show a phylogenetic signal, and then to estimate community- environment relationships at multiple spatial scales. Our results supported the notion that ecological niches evolved independently of phylogeny in macrophyte lineages worldwide. We also showed that taxonomic and phylogenetic beta diversity followed the typical global trend with higher diversity in the tropics. In addition, we were able to confirm that species, multi-trait and lineage compositions were first and foremost structured by climatic conditions at relatively broad spatial scales. Perhaps more importantly, we showed that large-scale processes along latitudinal and elevational gradients have left a strong footprint in the current diversity patterns and community-environment relationships in lake macrophytes. Overall, our results stress the need for an inte- grative approach to macroecology, biogeography and conservation biology, combining multiple diversity facets at different spatial scales. JGG appreciates financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Industry [project METAPONDS, grant CGL2017- 84176R], the Junta de Castilla y León [grant LE004G18] and from the Fundación Biodiversidad (Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transi- tion and Demographic Challenge). BAL was supported by National Research, Development and Innovation Fund [grant NKFIH, OTKA PD120775] and by the Bolyai János Research Scholarship of the Hun- garian Academy of Sciences. S.K. was supported by NWO Veni [grant 86312012]. Sampling of the coastal Brazilian lakes was financed by NWO [grant W84-549]; The National Geographic Society [grant 7864-5]; and CNPq [grants 480122, 490409, 311427]. We thank the SALGA team, especially Gissell Lacerot, Nestor Mazzeo, Vera Huszar, David da Motta Marques, and Erik Jeppesen for organizing and exe- cuting the SALGA field sampling campaign and Bruno Irgang† and Eduardo Alonso Paz for helping with identification. We thank Minne- sota and Wisconsin Departments of Natural Resources for collecting the macrophyte data. We are grateful to Carol Reschke for her work in combining and performing quality control for the Minnesota mac- rophyte data used in the analysis. This is contribution no. 607 of the Natural Resources Research Inst. of the Univ. of Minnesota Duluth. Provision of New Zealand macrophyte data was possible via NIWA SSIF funding. JGG appreciates financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Industry [project METAPONDS, grant CGL2017- 84176R], the Junta de Castilla y León [grant LE004G18] and from the Fundación Biodiversidad (Spanish Ministry for Ecological Transi- tion and Demographic Challenge). BAL was supported by National Research, Development and Innovation Fund [grant NKFIH, OTKA PD120775] and by the Bolyai János Research Scholarship of the Hun- garian Academy of Sciences. S.K. was supported by NWO Veni [grant 86312012]. Sampling of the coastal Brazilian lakes was financed by NWO [grant W84-549]; The National Geographic Society [grant 7864-5]; and CNPq [grants 480122, 490409, 311427]. We thank the SALGA team, especially Gissell Lacerot, Nestor Mazzeo, Vera Huszar, David da Motta Marques, and Erik Jeppesen for organizing and exe- cuting the SALGA field sampling campaign and Bruno Irgang† and Eduardo Alonso Paz for helping with identification. We thank Minne- sota and Wisconsin Departments of Natural Resources for collecting the macrophyte data. We are grateful to Carol Reschke for her work in combining and performing quality control for the Minnesota mac- rophyte data used in the analysis. This is contribution no. 607 of the Natural Resources Research Inst. of the Univ. of Minnesota Duluth. Provision of New Zealand macrophyte data was possible via NIWA SSIF funding.

Fish have somehow colonized isolated water bodies all over the world without human assistance. It has long been speculated that these colonization events are assisted by waterbirds, transporting fish eggs attached to their feet and feathers, yet empirical support for this is lacking. Recently, it was suggested that endozoochory (i.e., internal transport within the gut) might play a more important role, but only highly resistant diapause eggs of killifish have been found to survive passage through waterbird guts. Here, we performed a controlled feeding experiment, where developing eggs of two cosmopolitan, invasive cyprinids (common carp, Prussian carp) were fed to captive mallards. Live embryos of both species were retrieved from fresh feces and survived beyond hatching. Our study identifies an overlooked dispersal mechanism in fish, providing evidence for bird-mediated dispersal ability of soft-membraned eggs undergoing active development. Only 0.2% of ingested eggs survived gut passage, yet, given the abundance, diet, and movements of ducks in nature, our results have major implications for biodiversity conservation and invasion dynamics in freshwater ecosystems.

Documenting the patterns of biological diversity on Earth has always been a central challenge in macroecology and biogeography. However, we are only beginning to generate an understanding of the global patterns and determinants of macrophyte diversity. Here, we studied large-scale variation and community-environment relationships of lake macrophytes along climatic and geographical gradients using regional data from six continents. We applied statistical routines typically used in the context of metacommunity studies to provide novel insights into macrophyte community compositional patterns within regions worldwide. We found that lake macrophyte metacommunities followed clumped species replacement structures, suggesting that two or more species groups were responding similarly to the environment within regions. Underlying such general convergence, our results also provided evidence that community-environment relationships were largely context-dependent, stressing that no single mechanism is enough to account for the complex nature of compositional variation. Surprisingly, we found no general relationships between functional or phylogenetic composition and main metacommunity types, suggesting that linking multi-trait and evolutionary information to the elements of metacommunity structure is not straightforward. Our findings highlight that global conservation initiatives and biodiversity protection need to capture environmental variation at the metacommunity level, and acknowledge the highly context-dependent patterns in the community-environment relationships of lake macrophytes. Overall, we emphasize the need to embrace the potential complexity of ecological inferences in metacommunity organization across the globe.

The species–area relationship (SAR) is a well-investigated subject raising questions nonetheless. We hypothesized that SAR can be modified by naturally extreme conditions (high pH, conductivity, and total phosphorus) in a small spatial scale. A bombing range was chosen as a sampling location with a densely scattered cluster of bomb crater ponds, which vary in size and in extremity to study the hypothesis. Macroinvertebrate communities from 25 bomb crater ponds were sampled, along with the macrophyte community, while pH, conductivity, total phosphorus, and area were also registered. A decision tree was used to separate extreme from normal ponds based on their chemical characteristics. SAR was found to be the dominant driving force, increasing species richness in the extreme ponds. However, in the normal ponds, the small island effect was observed. The macroinvertebrate communities and macrophyte community types are congruent in normal ponds. Our findings imply that rules in ecology cannot be handled rigidly and there are dynamics existing between the factors that influence the composition of a macroinvertebrate community that cannot be ignored at habitat restorations.

While phytoplankton studies on large potamal rivers have increased in number in recent years, upper river sections have received considerably less attention. However, in order to better understand processes that govern the development of dominance of euplanktonic elements in the lower river sections, detailed studies of the upstream areas are necessary. We studied the composition, diversity and recruitment of the planktonic algal communities in the River Sajo and in its main tributary River Hernad, two characteristic rhithral river systems in Central Europe. Results revealed that diatoms are dominant elements of the phytoplankton in the upper river segments both in terms of taxa richness, and relative abundance. We found that composition of the phytoplankton showed the closest resemblance to that of benthic communities of soft substrates, highlighting the key role of riverbed characteristics in river phytoplankton recruitment. The occurrence of euplanktonic elements was not restricted to human impacted river segments, these taxa also occurred in pristine headwaters. Accordingly, planktonic algae potentially colonise small headwater streams naturally, although their dominance is expected to occur only at downstream reaches following impounded river segments. Diatom metrics used in ecological state assessment were calculated for the rithroplankton. These metrics fell in the range of values calculated for diatom flora on the hard substrates. However, the potential use of rithroplankton for quality assessment might be limited, because the high variability of index values at site level would result in misclassification of the ecological status.

Trait‐based approaches are widely used in community ecology and invasion biology to unravel underlying mechanisms of vegetation dynamics. Although fundamental trade‐offs between specific traits and invasibility are well described among terrestrial plants, little is known about their role and function in aquatic plant species. In this study, we examine the functional differences of aquatic alien and native plants stating that alien and native species differ in selected leaf traits. Our investigation is based on 60 taxa (21 alien and 39 native) collected from 22 freshwater units of Hungarian and Italian lowlands and highlands. Linear mixed models were used to investigate the effects of nativeness on four fundamental traits (leaf area, leaf dry matter content, specific leaf area, and leaf nitrogen content), while the influence of growth‐form, altitude, and site were employed simultaneously. We found significantly higher values of leaf areas and significantly lower values of specific leaf areas for alien species if growth‐form was included in the model as an additional predictor.We showed that the trait‐based approach of autochthony can apply to aquatic environments similar to terrestrial ones, and leaf traits have relevance in explaining aquatic plant ecology whether traits are combined with growth‐forms as a fixed factor. Our results confirm the importance of traits related to competitive ability in the process of aquatic plant invasions. Alien aquatic plants can be characterized as species producing soft leaves faster. We argue that the functional traits of alien aquatic plants are strongly growth‐form dependent. Using the trait‐based approach, we found reliable characteristics of aquatic plants related to species invasions, which might be used, for example, in conservation management.

Two closely related alien submerged aquatic plants were introduced into Europe. The new invader (Elodea nuttallii) gradually displaced E. canadensis even at sites where the latter was well established. The aim of the study was to evaluate the combined effects of environmental factors on several phenotypic characteristics of the two Elodea species, and to relate these phenotypic characteristics to the invasion success of E. nuttallii over E. canadensis. In a factorial design, Elodea plants were grown in aquaria containing five different nitrogen concentrations and incubated at five different light intensities. We used six functional traits (apical shoot RGR), total shoot RGR, relative elongation, root length, lateral spread, branching degree) to measure the environmental response of the species. We calculated plasticity indices to express the phenotypic differences between species. Light and nitrogen jointly triggered the development of phenotypic characteristics that make E. nuttallii a more successful invader in eutrophic waters than E. canadensis. The stronger invader showed a wider range of phenotypic plasticity. The apical elongation was the main difference between the two species, with E. nuttallii being more than two times longer than E. canadensis. E. canadensis formed dense side shoots even under high shade and low nitrogen levels, whereas E. nuttallii required higher light and nitrogen levels. We found that under more eutrophic conditions, E. nuttallii reach the water surface sooner than E. canadensis and through intensive branching outcompetes all other plants including E. canadensis. Our findings support the theory that more successful invaders have wider phenotypic plasticity.

To test the hitherto generally-accepted hypothesis that most aquatic macrophytes have broad world distributions, we investigated the global distribution, diversity and endemism patterns of 3457 macrophyte species that occur in permanent, temporary or ephemeral inland freshwater and brackish waterbodies worldwide. At a resolution of 10 × 10° latitude x longitude, most macrophyte species were found to have narrow global distributions: 78% have ranges (measured using an approach broadly following the IUCN-defined concept “extent of occurrence”) that individually occupy T: 625 species/gridcell, 350 of them Neotropical endemics). In contrast, the Sahara/Arabian Deserts, and some Arctic areas, have the lowest macrophyte α-diversity (ST 5-fold difference between the most species-rich (Neotropics) and species-poor (Palaearctic) ecozones. Our findings strongly support the assertion that small-ranged species constitute most of Earth's species diversity.

Jelen közleményünk annak a sorozatnak a második része, melynek célja a Magyarország edényes növényfajainak elterjedési atlasza térképeinek kiegészítése, főként aktuális előfordulási adatokkal. Ezúttal 612 edényes taxon előfordulási adatait közöljük az ország szinte egész területéről (mintegy 283 flóratérképezési kvadrátból), de legnagyobb számban az Északi-középhegységből. Az adatok között ritkább őshonos taxonok (e.g. Antennaria dioica, Bupleurum pachnospermum, Carex rostrata, Ceratocephala testiculata, Cicuta virosa, Cirsium boujartii, Epipactis moravica, Lycopsis arvensis, Parnassia palustris, Pyrus nivalis, Rumex kerneri, Rumex pulcher, Silene nemoralis, Stellaria alsine, Teucrium botrys, Vicia lutea), ritka, vagy legalábbis adathiányos idegenhonos fajok (például Nonea lutea, Panicum dichotomiflorum, Silybum marianum) mellett országosan elterjedt, de többé-kevésbé alulreprezentált fajok (például Eragrostis minor, Heliotropium europaeum, Saxifraga tridactylites) esetében is közöljük az Atlasz térképeihez képest újnak bizonyuló lelőhelyeket. Közleményünk számottevően hozzájárul a Ranunculus illyricus és a Spergula pentandra nyírségi, valamint a Senecio vernalis hazai elterjedésének ismeretéhez.

Epipactis tallosii is considered as one of the highly threatened European orchid species due to its local distribution and small isolated populations that are characterized by decreasing trends. The species is now enlisted in the endangered (EN) category of the Red List. Nevertheless, during the last decade, multiple new populations of the species were found in Hungary, while our field surveys indicated that E. tallosii populations regularly occur in poplar (Populus) plantations. Here we conducted a thorough field survey of poplar plantations, by visiting 182 plantations in Hungary and surrounding countries in the Pannonian Biogeographic Region. We found E. tallosii in 23% of the visited plantations, and counted a total of c. 4000 generative shoots. Moreover, we documented the occurrence of the species to four countries, where it has not been reported before: Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Ukraine. Alien and indigenous/mixed poplar plantations were similarly likely to harbour populations of E. tallosii. Our study suggests that the distribution area and number of populations of E. tallosii is much larger than previously assumed, and that poplar plantations serve as suitable habitat islands in the agricultural landscapes for this orchid. In the light of our results, we suggest the reassessment of the IUCN category of E. tallosii and to re-categorize it as Near Threatened (NT).Citation: Suveges K., Loki V., Lovas-Kiss A., Ljubka T., Fekete R., Takacs A., Vincze O., Lukacs B. A. & Molnar V. A. 2019: From European priority species to characteristic apophyte: Epipactis tallosii (Orchidaceae). – Willdenowia 49: 401–409. doi: https://doi.org/10.3372/wi.49.49310Version of record first published online on 4 December 2019 ahead of inclusion in December 2019 issue.

The name Elatine campylosperma Seub. is generally treated as one of the synonyms of E. macropoda Guss. However, recent morphological, phylogenetic and karyological studies indicate that this judgement should be revised. In the present paper we typify the name E. campylosperma, review its taxonomic history and provide a thorough description, with compilation of previously published data and our new measurements from in vitro cultures. Based on our herbarium survey, we outline its Atlantic-Mediterranean distribution area (Spain, France, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Algeria). Habitat preferences are summarized from our field observations, water quality measurements and the label information of the herbarium specimens examined. Intact E. campylosperma seeds were found in faecal samples of the Eurasian Coot (Fulica atra L.) in southern Spain and two of them were germinated, suggesting that E. campylosperma has a capacity for long distance dispersal via endozoochory

Este artículo contiene 16 páginas, 3 tablas, 2 figuras., We studied community–environment relationships of lake macrophytes at two metacommunity scales using data from 16 regions across the world. More specifically, we examined (a) whether the lake macrophyte communities respond similar to key local environmental factors, major climate variables and lake spatial locations in each of the regions (i.e., within-region approach) and (b) how well can explained variability in the community–environment relationships across multiple lake macrophyte metacommunities be accounted for by elevation range, spatial extent, latitude, longitude, and age of the oldest lake within each metacommunity (i.e., across-region approach). In the within-region approach, we employed partial redundancy analyses together with variation partitioning to investigate the relative importance of local variables, climate variables, and spatial location on lake macrophytes among the study regions. In the across-region approach, we used adjusted R2 values of the variation partitioning to model the community–environment relationships across multiple metacommunities using linear regression and commonality analysis. We found that niche filtering related to local lake-level environmental conditions was the dominant force structuring macrophytes within metacommunities. However, our results also revealed that elevation range associated with climate (increasing temperature amplitude affecting macrophytes) and spatial location (likely due to dispersal limitation) was important for macrophytes based on the findings of the across-metacommunities analysis. These findings suggest that different determinants influence macrophyte metacommunities within different regions, thus showing context dependency. Moreover, our study emphasized that the use of a single metacommunity scale gives incomplete information on the environmental features explaining variation in macrophyte communities., Open access funding provided by University of Oulu including Oulu University Hospital. JA appreciates financial support from the Ella and Georg Ehrnrooth Foundation. BAL was supported by National Research, Development and Innovation Office—NKFIH, OTKA PD120775 Grant and by the Bolyai János Research Scholarship of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. S.K. was supported by NWO Veni grant 86312012. Sampling of the coastal Brazilian lakes was financed by NWO grant W84-549; The National Geographic Society grant 7864-5; and CNPq grants 480122, 490409, 311427.

Elatine triandra Schkuhr is the most variable and widespread species within the genus Elatine L.; it has been recorded in all continents, except Antarctica, but it is mainly located in Europe. The study is based on an extensive data set of European literature, herbaria and web data that covers the period 1828–2012. The range of the species in Europe is disjunctive, covering the southern and western parts of the Central European Plain and the southern part of the Fennoscandian Shield. At a smaller scale, the species can also be found along some river valleys. In Central Europe many localities, particularly isolated ones in the northern part of the range, are now only historical. From the data set we determined that E. triandra may be best observed between May and October. We found that species records show a near-significant shift since 1828. Depending on the environmental conditions, individuals of the taxon develop as one of two morphs: terrestrial or aquatic. The aquatic morph is characterized b...

We examined the distribution of submerged and emergent macrophyte species and the entire macrophyte community within and between five lake types (highland reservoirs, alkali lakes, large shallow lakes, small to medium sized shallow lakes, marshes) in the Pannon Ecoregion, Hungary. The lowest submerged, emergent and total species richness was found in alkali lakes. The highest submerged macrophyte richness was in small to medium sized lakes, while the highest emergent macrophyte species richness was in reservoirs, small to medium sized lakes, and marshes. The values of within-lake type beta diversity were generally lower than the values of alpha diversity, especially for submerged macrophytes, indicating between site homogeneity in species composition within the lake types. Emergent macrophyte communities contributed the most to within and between lake type diversity and total (gamma) diversity. Canonical correspondence analyses showed that the main environmental variables which influenced the distribution of submerged macrophytes were conductivity, Secchi transparency and water nitrogen contents. For emergent macrophytes conductivity, lake width, altitude and water depth proved to be the most influential variables. Our results contribute to the knowledge of large-scale distribution of macrophytes in the Pannon Ecoregion and to the identification of conservation value of lakes using macrophytes. The results support the importance of small lakes and artificial lakes in the conservation of macrophyte diversity compared to large and natural lakes in the Pannon Ecoregion.

The importance of studies based on plant functional traits is indicated by the huge number of papers (more than 5000) published in the last 15 years in this topic. In community ecology the recent trend of studying organisms on the functional- rather than on the taxonomic level is quite significant. In this review we attempted to summarise the applicability of functional plant traits commonly used in ecological studies. We discussed the levels of functional categorisation, described the different plant strategies based on functional traits and emphasised the usage of standardised measurements. The most outstanding trait databases are introduced here, showing their availability, content and specialities. This review is intended as an introduction to the topic and can later be completed by papers elaborating on how plant functional traits are used in theoretical and applied plant ecology.

Estimating the extent of biological invasions is critical in predicting the effect of exotic species. We investigated the occurrence and number of alien freshwater plants and give information on the composition of alien aquatic flora, their trend in time, invasion pathway, and their invasive character.

This paper reports new floristic data of 207 taxa. Data collected between 2005 and 2015; originated from the central part of the floristic region ‘Crisicum’ (i.e. the E part of the Great Hungarian Plain), which is a currently poorly studied area of Hungary from a floristic point of view. The paper reports occurrence localities for some rarities such as Asplenium trichomanes, Marsilea quadrifolia, Sisymbrium polymorphum, Viola stagnina, Gentiana pneumonanthe, Elymus elongatus, Montia fontana subsp. chondrosperma, Ranunculus rionii, Ranunculus illyricus, Myagrum perfoliatum, Sedum caespitosum, Vicia biennis, Dorycnium herbaceum, Oenanthe banatica, Peucedanum cervaria, Echium italicum, Digitalis lanata, Valerianella rimosa, Craex buekii, Cephalaria transsylvanica, Cyperus pannonicus.

Este artículo contiene 14 páginas, 3 tablas, 3 figuras., Aim: We studied global variation in beta diversity patterns of lake macrophytes using regional data from across the world. Specifically, we examined (1) how beta diversity of aquatic macrophytes is partitioned between species turnover and nestedness within each study region, and (2) which environmental characteristics structure variation in these beta diversity components. Location: Global. Methods: We used presence–absence data for aquatic macrophytes from 21 regions distributed around the world. We calculated pairwise-site and multiple-site beta diversity among lakes within each region using Sørensen dissimilarity index and partitioned it into turnover and nestedness coefficients. Beta regression was used to correlate the diversity coefficients with regional environmental characteristics. Results Aquatic macrophytes showed different levels of beta diversity within each of the 21 study regions, with species turnover typically accounting for the majority of beta diversity, especially in high-diversity regions. However, nestedness contributed 30–50% of total variation in macrophyte beta diversity in low-diversity regions. The most important environmental factor explaining the three beta diversity coefficients (total, species turnover and nestedness) was elevation range, followed by relative areal extent of freshwater, latitude and water alkalinity range. Main conclusions: Our findings show that global patterns in beta diversity of lake macrophytes are caused by species turnover rather than by nestedness. These patterns in beta diversity were driven by natural environmental heterogeneity, notably variability in elevation range (also related to temperature variation) among regions. In addition, a greater range in alkalinity within a region, likely amplified by human activities, was also correlated with increased macrophyte beta diversity. These findings suggest that efforts to conserve aquatic macrophyte diversity should primarily focus on regions with large numbers of lakes that exhibit broad environmental gradients., The gathering of the Finnish data was partly supported by Biological Monitoring of Finnish Freshwaters under diffuse loading -project (XPR3304) financed by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry and partly by national surveillance monitoring programs of lakes. S.H. and M.M. were supported by the EU-funded MARS-project (7th EU Framework Programme, Contract No.: 603378).Swedish macrophyte data were collected within the Swedish Monitoring Program of macrophytes in lakes funded by the Swedish Agency for Marine and Water Management. S.K. was supported by NWO Veni grant 86312012. Macrophyte data from Brazilian Amazon were collected within a limnological monitoring program funded by Vale S.A. The vast majority of macrophyte data from Polish lakes were collected within the State Environmental Monitoring Programme and were provided by the Inspection for Environmental Protection. Macrophyte data for British lakes were collated by the Joint Nature Conservation Committee from surveys resourced by the national conservation agencies. Swiss macrophytes data were collected during a study financially supported by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment. Wisconsin data collection was funded by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and supported by the Wisconsin Cooperative Fishery Research Unit. The Norwegian macrophyte data were collected within the European Union project ‘LAKES – Long distance dispersal of Aquatic Key Species’, contract no. env4-ct-97-0585.

Elatine gussonei (Sommier) Brullo et al. is a rare freshwater plant previously assumed to be endemic to Lampedusa and the Maltase archipelago. Taxonomic uncertainties within the Elatine genus may have caused E. gussonei populations to be overlooked in the Mediterranean region. To clarify the distribution of E. gussonei, we reviewed Elatine specimens from 12 herbaria and conducted eight field surveys in Mediterranean countries. Through our herbarium review we documented previously unknown occurrences of E. gussonei from Portugal, Spain, France, Algeria, Egypt, Cyprus and Israel. Additionally, in field studies we found populations from Cyprus, Morocco and Spain. Elatine gussonei is therefore more widespread than previously assumed, although the species still has a scattered distribution around the Mediterranean and many of the records are old. We found intact E. gussonei seeds in the faeces of migratory Greylag Geese (Anser anser) collected in southern Spain, suggesting that E. gussonei has a high capacity for long distance dispersal.

The distribution of fen pondweed (Potamogeton coloratus) restricted to Europe where it is one of the rarest and most threatened pondweed species. In Hungary, former data of fen pondweed originated mostly from thermal and karstic springs. Due to intensive bauxite mining activity in the edge of the Transdanubian Mountain Range (NW Hungary) these springs dried up by the end of the 20th century, and it caused the temporal extinction of the species. After the ceasing of mining activity many of the former karstic springs have regenerated and several fen pondweed populations have re-established. In this paper we summarized 18 population data of fen pondweed collected between 1999 and 2016. Many of them were formerly registered in the 19th century too. Most of the new and re-discovered populations were found in karstic springs or in artificial and natural lakes in the vicinity of these springs.

As lake biota are basically determined by hydromorphological characteristics of the lake basin, estab- lishment of a lake typology is the first step in lake quality assessment and management. Based on descriptor vari- ables (size, depth, lake bed material, water-regime and macrophyte coverage), 16 hydromorphological lake-types were established for the Pannonian Ecoregion. Our analyses revealed that descriptor variables have considerable effect both on biomass and composition of phytoplankton. As the phytoplankton biomass of several lake-types can be merged, a simplified typology can be proposed. Since the phytoplankton composition of various lake-types dif- fered significantly in terms of diversity and relative abundance of functional groups, well delineated composition- based types cannot be established for Pannonian lakes. Although the Pannonian Ecoregion is the westernmost part of the Eurasian steppe zone, the proposed typology of the studied area can be extended to lakes of the greater Pannonian region.

For an effective conservation and management in grasslands it is essential to understand mechanisms sustaining biodiversity. To gain knowledge is especially crucial in stressed grasslands harbouring a unique flora and fauna, like alkali grasslands. Aboveground vegetation, seed bank and environmental factors were studied in three stands of the following alkali grassland types: (i) Artemisia dry alkali grasslands at highest elevations; (ii) Puccinellia high and (iii) Puccinellia low grasslands at medium to low elevations, and (iv) Juncus wet alkali grasslands at the lowest elevations. We tested the following hypotheses: (i) Seed bank species diversity and density are the highest in the most stressed grassland types, where regeneration by seeds could have a major importance in sustaining vegetation diversity. (ii) Seed bank density of hygrophytes increases with decreasing elevation, because the cover of hygrophytes in the vegetation increases with decreasing elevation. The mean seed bank density ranged from 30,104 up to 51,410 seeds/m2, which is higher than in most dry grasslands. Both the lowest seed bank density and diversity were detected in the most stressed Puccinellia high grasslands; Spergularia salina was the only abundant seed bank species (possessing at least 1000 seeds/m2). These results not supported our first hypothesis. We detected the highest seed densities of almost all hygrophyte species in the lowest-elevated Juncus grasslands. But, we did not find a significant monotonous correlation between elevation and the overall hygrophyte seed bank density; because most of the hygrophyte species were missing from the seed bank at the medium-elevated, but most saline Puccinellia grasslands. Thus, our results only partly supported the second hypothesis. In total we detected more species in the seed bank than in the aboveground vegetation which emphasises that seed bank plays an important role in sustaining the diversity of alkali grasslands. However, characteristic graminoids possessed no considerable seed bank, except for Juncus compressus (up to 38,619 seeds/m2). We can conclude that persistence and establishment of most alkali grassland species are not supported by the local persistent seed bank.

Himantoglossum adriaticum H. Baumann is a long-lived perennial orchid with an adriato-mediterranean distribution. The species-level separation of this species from the more geographically widespread H. hircinum has only recently been confirmed via a combination of molecular and morphometric techniques, which are further developed here. To provide a comprehensive overview of its autecology we integrated previously published information with extensive unpublished data derived mainly from populations in the Keszthely Hills of Hungary. In this paper we assess the distribution, habitat preferences, life history and seed germination (ex situ and in situ) of H. adriaticum , with special emphasis on its reproductive biology.

The restoration and management of shallow, pond-like systems are hindered by limitations in the applicability of the well-known models describing the relationship between nutrients and lake phytoplankton biomass in higher ranges of nutrient concentration. Trophic models for naturally eutrophic small, shallow, endorheic lakes have not yet been developed, even though these are the most frequent standing waters in continental lowlands. The aim of this study was to identify variables that can be considered as main drivers of phytoplankton biomass and to build a predictive model. The influence of potential drivers of phytoplankton biomass (nutrients, other chemical variables, land use, lake use and lake depth) from 24 shallow eutrophic lakes was tested using data in the Pannonian ecoregion (Hungary and Romania). By incorporating lake depth, TP, TN and lake use as independent and Chl-a as dependent variables into different models (multiple regression model, GLM and multilayer perception model) predictive models were built. These models explained >50% of the variance. Although phytoplankton biomass in small, shallow, enriched lakes is strongly influenced by stochastic effects, our results suggest that phytoplankton biomass can be predicted by applying a multiple stressor approach, and that the model results can be used for management purposes.

The main aim of the present work is to contribute with new data to the distribution maps published recently in Atlas Florae Hungariae. Occurrence data of 297 vascular plant taxa from 247 flora mapping quarter quadrates (CEU) are presented. This floristic paper is somehow unusual because besides the occurrence data of rare or sporadic taxa (e.g. Armoracia macrocarpa (Waldst. et Kit.) Kit. ex Baumg., Samolus valerandi L., Epipactis voethii Robatsch), frequent, but more or less underrepresented taxa (e.g. Ranunculus ficaria L., Viola kitaibeliana Roem. et Schult., Gagea villosa (M. Bieb.) Duby), as well as alien taxa (e.g. Cymbalaria muralis G. Gaertn., B. Mey. et Scherb., Potentilla indica (Andrews) Focke, Tragus racemosus (L.) All.) are also enumerated, since our intention was to fill the – sometimes evident – gaps in the Atlas. The name initials of the author(s) who actually found the given occurrence are presented in brackets at each record.