Road verges are important secondary habitats for grassland arthropods

Semi-natural linear landscape elements such as road verges, hedgerows and feld margins are important in maintaining the connectivity between habitat fragments of highly modifed landscapes. Preservation of habitat specialist fauna requires conservation of the remaining natural habitat patches and connectivity of fragments. Our study focuses on the spider, ant and true bug fauna and functional diversity (FD) of fragmented forest steppe patches, moderately grazed pastures and road verges embedded in a matrix of forest plantations in Hungary, Central Europe. We established total 30 sampling sites, 10 in each, the grassland component of forest-steppes (F), pastures (P) and road verges (R) near pine forests. We collected arthropods with pitfall and sweep-net techniques. We calculated FD and species composition of arthropods using linear mixed models. We observed higher species richness in road verges for spiders and ants. We also found higher FD values for spiders and diferent trait composition for all taxa in road verges when compared with forest steppes and pastures. Species composition suggests that road verges do not serve as habitat for several forest-steppe and grassland species, in spite of the fact that numerous specialist species were found in the road verges. We show that forest steppes have higher species richness of spiders than pastures, and there are diferences in species assemblage composition of the two habitat types for all taxa. Our results indicate that road verges should be considered as an important refuge for grassland specialist arthropods, as road verges provide secondary linear habitats for many arthropod species, and we would suggest the maintenance of these grassy strips in order to preserve arthropod biodiversity

Hallgatói teljesítményértékelés az algoritmikus gondolkodás tükrében

Az informatikai gondolkodás (computational thinking) egyik alapköve az algoritmikus gondolkodás. Ennek mérésére, fejlesztésére több irányzat is létezik. Egyik igen komoly és sokrétű elgondolás a számítógép nélkül, a gondolkodási sémákon keresztül történő megközelítés. Ilyen a nemzetközi Bebras kezdeményezés is. Kutatásunkban az Eötvös Loránd Tudományegyetem Informatika Karának angol nyelvű BSc-s hallgatóin keresztül arra kerestük a választ, hogy az első szemeszter tantárgyainak hatására mennyire változik a hallgatók algoritmikus gondolkodása, illetve az alapozó programozást támogató (Programming) kurzuson nyújtott teljesítmény milyen összefüggéseket mutat ezen változásokkal. A felméréshez a Bebras kezdeményezés feladatainak segítségével készítettük el felmérésünket, melynek alapjait és elsődleges eredményeit a cikkünkben foglaltuk össze

Open photoacoustic cell for concentration measurements in rapidly flowing gas

High temporal resolution concentration measurements in rapid gas flows pose a serious challenge for most analytical instruments. The interaction of such flows with solid surfaces can generate excessive aero-acoustic noise making the application of the photoacoustic detection method seemingly impossible. Yet, the fully open photoacoustic cell (OC) has proven to be operable even when the measured gas flows through it at a velocity of several m/s. The OC is a slightly modified version of a previously introduced OC based on the excitation of a combined acoustic mode of a cylindrical resonator. The noise characteristics and analytical performance of the OC are tested in an anechoic room and under field conditions. Here we present the first successful application of a sampling-free OC for water vapor flux measurements

Functional composition of ant assemblages in habitat islands is driven by habitat factors and landscape composition

Fragmented natural habitats within human-transformed landscapes play a key role in preserving biodiversity. Ants as keystone species are essential elements of terrestrial ecosystems; thus, it is important to understand the factors influencing their presence. In a large-scale multi-site study, we surveyed ant assemblages using sweep netting and D-vac sampling on 158 ancient burial mounds preserving grassland habitats in agricultural landscapes in East-Hungary. We asked the following questions: (1) How do habitat factors and landscape composition affect species richness and functional diversity of ants? (2) Which ant traits are affected by habitat factors and landscape composition? Despite their small sizes, mounds as permanent and relatively undisturbed landscape elements could provide safe havens for diverse ant assemblages even in transformed agricultural landscapes. The complex habitat structure of wooded mounds supported high species and functional diversity of ant assemblages. Ant species on wooded mounds had small or medium-sized colonies, enabling the co-existence of more species. The effect of landscape composition on ant assemblages was mediated by habitat factors: steep slopes buffered the negative effect of the cropland matrix and enabled higher ant diversity