Both agricultural intensification and urbanisation result in habitat degradation, which negatively affects biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Biodiversity conservation cannot rely on protected areas alone, as sustainable conservation requires strategies for managing whole landscapes including agricultural and urban areas. Thus species persistence in human-altered landscapes can depend on factors operating at multiple spatial scales. At the landscape scale, however, it is necessary to differentiate between two major types of landscape structure, the landscape compositional heterogeneity and the landscape configurational heterogeneity, in order to better inform nature conservation policies. The overall aim of this research proposal is to understand how the complexity of landscape structure shapes biodiversity patterns and associated ecosystem functions and services. This project will investigate the contribution of major land-use types (arable, grassland, forest, urban area) to the biodiversity and provision of ecosystem functions considering species traits. The results will be evaluated in a wider socioeconomic context. The project will give a momentum to the emerging landscape-scale conservation ecology research in Hungary with articles published in top ecological and multidisciplinary journals, as well as, with strong relevance for nature conservation and environmental policy.

Research groups

Lendület Landscape and Conservation Ecology Research Group

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