Bridging biodiversity and gardening: Unravelling the interplay of socio-demographic factors, 3 garden practices, and garden characteristics.

ABSTRACT: The expansion of urban areas threatens biodiversity, disrupts essential ecological relationships and jeopardises fragile ecological networks, thereby impedes key ecosystem services. To avert irreversible consequences, there is a focus on improving the biodiversity value of domestic gardens for both human well-being and conservation and a global imperative for well-planned and sustainable urban environments. Here, we employ machine learning and network analysis and examine gardening practices and garden owners’ environmental consciousness in Hungary through a questionnaire-based study to untangle the interplay among socio-demographic factors, garden management, and garden characteristics. We found that the activities determined as biodiversity-positive were widespread among respondents, but a lack of undisturbed areas (n = 624, 49.52%), mowing several times a month (n = 404, 32.06%) and ubiquitous pesticide use (n = 783, 62.14%) were also present. Middle-aged respondents demonstrated more biodiversity-supporting activities than those over 55, who had long-term gardening experience and were predominantly conventional gardeners. Residents of towns showed the least biodiversity-positive activities, whereas those living in cities and the countryside fared better. Additionally, multiple interconnected garden characteristics revealed various types of gardens distinguished by care practices and use, such as gardens for food self-provisioning, ornamental gardens, or those prioritizing biodiversity support. Our results show that garden owners use pesticides, and within them herbicides, independently of socio-demographic parameters, gardening practices, or garden characteristics, suggesting a widespread pesticide use in Hungary. Our findings suggest that strategies, to promote biodiversity-friendly gardening practices may not be equally suitable for all European countries with different cultural backgrounds, environmental consciousness and pesticide use. In particular, factors like differences between societal groups underscore the preference for in-person programs over online information transfer in several cases, for instance, among the elderly and those living in the countryside. This study offers fresh perspectives on the intricate connections between garden diversity, characteristics, and practices, and it lays the groundwork for future research into the sociological drivers of gardening practices in Eastern Europe. Our work also emphasises that optimizing gardens for multiple ecosystem services, including biodiversity conservation and enhancing well-being across diverse societal groups, requires a nuanced understanding of both ecological and socio-demographic factors.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Bridging biodiversity and gardening: Unravelling the interplay of socio-demographic factors, garden practices, and garden characteristics

The expansion of urban areas threatens biodiversity and disrupts ecological relationships, thereby impeding key ecosystem services. To avert irreversible consequences, there is a focus on improving the biodiversity value of domestic gardens. We employ machine learning and network analysis and examine gardening practices and garden owners’ environmental consciousness in Hungary through a questionnaire-based study to untangle the interplay among socio-demographic factors, garden management and -characteristics. We found that the activities determined as biodiversity-positive were widespread among respondents, but ubiquitous pesticide use (62.14%), lack of undisturbed areas (49.52%), and frequent mowing (32.06%) were also present. Middle-aged respondents demonstrated more biodiversity-supporting activities than those over 55, who had long-term gardening experience and were predominantly conventional gardeners. Respondents of towns showed the least biodiversity-positive activities, whereas those living in cities and the countryside fared better. Additionally, multiple interconnected garden characteristics revealed various types of gardens distinguished by care practices and use, such as gardens for food self-provisioning, ornamental gardens, or those prioritizing biodiversity support. Our results show that garden owners use pesticides independently of socio-demographic parameters, gardening practices, or garden characteristics, suggesting widespread pesticide use in Hungary. Our findings suggest that strategies to promote biodiversity-friendly gardening may not be equally suitable for all gardener owners with different cultural backgrounds, environmental consciousness and gardening habits. Factors like differences between societal groups underscore the preference for in-person programs over online information transfer in several cases, for instance, among the elderly and those living in the countryside. We offer fresh perspectives on the intricate connections between garden diversity, characteristics, and practices, and it lays the groundwork for future research into the sociological drivers of gardening practices in Eastern Europe. Our work emphasises that optimizing gardens for multiple ecosystem services, including biodiversity conservation and enhancing human well-being, requires a nuanced understanding of both ecological and socio-demographic factors.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Pajzstetű fajok morfológiai és molekuláris összehasonlító vizsgálata

A pajzstetvek széles körben elterjedt növényi kártevôk. A fajok meghatározása ivarérett nôsténybôl készült mikroszkópi preparátum alapján történik. Molekuláris módszerekkel a fajszintû azonosítás nemcsak nôstény egyedek, hanem tojások, lárvák vagy hím egyedek esetében is lehetséges. Munkánk során morfológiai és molekuláris összehasonlító vizsgálatokat végeztünk az eperfapajzstetû Pseudaulacaspis pentagona (Targioni-Tozetti, 1886) (Diaspididae) és két Planococcus (Pseudococcidae) fajon. Célunk, hogy a P. pentagona faj esetében mikropopulációs különbségeket, a Planococcus nemzetség esetében pedig a fajok közti genetikai eltéréseket tegyük láthatóvá molekuláris markerek segítségével. Molekuláris módszerekkel meghatároztuk a riboszomális DNS ITS2 szakasz bázissorrendjét. A kapott eredmények alapján feltételezhető, hogy a mikropopulációkat nagyobb mértékben befolyásolják a területi elkülönülések, mint a tápnövény. Az ITS2 régió alkalmas a két Planococcus faj elkülönítésére, melyek a szekvenciák alapján rajzolt törzsfán egyértelmûen elkülönülnek egymástól. A molekuláris és morfológiai vizsgálatok mindkét faj esetében ugyanarra az eredményre vezettek. A molekuláris módszer alkalmas mind hím, mind nôstény imágók esetében a fajok elkülönítéséhez

Regional variations in agrobiont composition and agrobiont life history of spiders (Araneae) within Hungary

Agrobiont spider species are well adapted to arable systems, which have fairly uniform vegetation structure and pest assemblages over continent-wide areas. We wanted to study, whether agrobiont spider subassemblages and the life history of the most prominent agrobiont, Pardosa agrestis, show any regional variation within Hungary, where only modest climatic differences exist between the NW and SE parts of the country. We studied agrobiont species of spider assemblages in 27 alfalfa and 21 cereal fields with suction sampling and pitfalls. The similarity structure of these agrobiont sub-assemblages (Sørensen distance measure) was congruent with the geographic distance matrices (Eucledian distance), as tested by Mantel tests. However, if we considered sub-assemblages consisting of the non-agrobiont species, this congruency was always higher. Thus, agrobionts responded only moderately to geographical variation if we compare them to non-agrobiont species. We studied the generation numbers and the occurrence of the first adult individuals in P. agrestis; the most common agrobiont spider in Hungary. This comparison involved comparing fields along a NW – SE gradient during 6 sampling years in pairwise comparisons, where in each year a northern and a southern population was compared with a minimum distance of 126 km in between. In generation numbers there was no difference; we found two generations across Hungary. In contrast, the first occurrence of adult individuals was on average 15 days earlier in both generations in the more southern populations. Thus, it can be concluded that agrobionts show a fairly stable and relatively low magnitude response over country-sized geographical ranges

Improving biodiversity in Central and Eastern European domestic gardens needs regionally scaled strategies

Amid ongoing urbanisation and increasing anthropogenic activities, domestic gardens, while cannot replace natural habitats, play a crucial role in enhancing urban biodiversity by supporting green areas and as parts of ecological corridors. Moreover, these biodiversity-friendly gardens also improve human well-being and foster a connection between nature and people. We circulated an online questionnaire between 2022 and 2023 to investigate how the garden parameters, the gardening motivation of garden owners, and their pesticide use habits depend on each other in nine Central– and Eastern European (CEE) countries. Moreover, we aimed to explore the differences and similarities between gardens and gardening practices with a potential for maintaining high biodiversity. To achieve this, we assessed the ecological value of the gardens, the motivation of garden owners, and their pesticide use habits using an answer-based scoring system. Our findings reveal significant variability both among participating countries and within them on a smaller and larger scale, across all three indices, highlighting the need for region-specific circumstances rather than unified regulations across European countries to maximize the conservation value examined. Our study underscores the potential of domestic gardens in designing eco-networks and informs strategies to optimize their environmental benefits. However, due to the ubiquitous domestic use of pesticides in CEE, informing garden owners about the environmental and human health effects of pesticides would be equally necessary in every area, both urban and rural. Additionally, our findings suggest that effective environmental educational programs and tailored strategies should be developed to meet local needs rather than overarching but too general international targets. At the same time, these programs should provide comprehensive biodiversity-related information, reaching all strata of society. This is especially important in CEE, where such initiatives are currently under-emphasized.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Records of Ceroplastes Gray 1828 in Europe, with an identification key to species in the Palaearctic Region

Abstract The genus Ceroplastes (Hemiptera Coccoidea Coccidae) in Europe is reviewed. Surveys of Hungarian nurseries, greenhouses and flower shops found plants infested with Ceroplastes scale insects. Among them, Ceroplastes rubens Maskell 1893 was identified. Since there is constant invasion of European markets by species of Ceroplastes, a key is presented to separate the species currently known to occur in the Palaearctic Region