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...

Habitat use by European wildcats (Felis silvestris) in central Spain: what is the relative importance of forest variables?— Habitat preferences of wildcats are controversial. Although they are usually considered a forest species, alternative environments such as scrubland can be preferred. In this study we compared five habitat types in relation to wildcat occurrence. Sampling was carried out b...

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...

Cyanobacterial diversity in soil crusts has been extensively studied in arid lands of temperate regions, particularly semi-arid steppes and warm deserts. Nevertheless, Arctic soil crusts have received far less attention than their temperate counterparts. Here, we describe the cyanobacterial communities from various types of soil crusts from Svalbard, High Arctic. Four soil crusts at different d...