Content of the Volume 39.
Herczeg, D., Gallé, R. and Molnár, N. (2012): Effects of urbanization on the occurence of Anura assemblages in the city of Szeged (Hungary). – Tiscia 39, 3-8
Abstract. Nowadays, rapidly expanding urbanization influences the existence of many plant and animal species. The amphibian decline is largely related to habitat loss, in which expansion of urban areas and the degradation of aquatic habitats within the city play a significant role. There were 18 study sites involved in our study, all within the administrative area of Szeged. Their state was different regarding the adverse impacts of urbanization. In our study we seek to answer which amphibian species occur in Szeged and what are the environmental parameters that affect the community of amphibians living in urban areas. Our results clearly show that Pelophylax esculentus complex is fully dominating the heavily polluted, affected and also the most seminatural aquatic habitats. Moreover, regarding the environmental parameters, we detected negative correlation between the length of the main roads, the total area of the study sites and its vegetation cover and water transparency. However, according to our results, there is positive correlation between the locally occurring amphibian community and the coastal water depth and the linear extent of the surrounding concrete and dirt roads.
Keywords: urbanization, environmental parameters, amphibian community, species richness, aquatic habitats
Horváth, G. (2012): Assessment of riverine dragonflies (Odonata: Gomphidae) and the emergence behaviour of their larvae based on exuviae data on the reach of the river Tisza in Szeged. — Tiscia 39, 9-15
Abstract. Abundance, phenology, sex ratio, emergence pattern, mortality and larval emergence behaviour of riverine dragonflies (Odonata: Gomphidae) were studied at the Lower-Tisza reach at Szeged (168–173 rkm) during the emergence period in 2011. Three 20 meter long sampling sites were chosen and searched systematically for exuviae, dead specimens and dragonfly wings, which were left behind by bird predators. At the studied reach of the river two species form stable populations: G. flavipes and G. vulgatissimus. G. flavipes was much more abundant than G. vulgatissimus. Exuviae indicated the excess of females in the G. vulgatissimus population (altough there were no significant difference between sexes), while in the case of G. flavipes the number of individuals in both sexes were almost the same. G. vulgatissimus started to emerge first as a ’spring species’, while G. flavipes started to emerge about a month later showing the characteristics of a ’summer species’. The rate of mortality in the G. flavipes population during emergence was slight and quite normal compared to the abundance of the species. Selection of emergence support of G. flavipes showed that the significant majority of the larvae chose soil, but this could have been caused by the notable minority of other types of substrates at the sampling sites. The distance crawled by the larvae from the water-front to the emergence site differed significantly between the two species, G. vulgatissumus crawled further, and in the case of G. flavipes the effect of the measured background variables to the distance had not been proven.
Key words: Gomphus flavipes, G. vulgatissimus, collections of exuviae, abundance, emergence pattern, sex ratio.
Erdős, L., Cseh, V. and Bátori, Z. (2013): New localities of protected and rare plants in southern Hungary. – Tiscia 39, 17-21.
Abstract. Data on protected and rare plants may be important from a nature conservation point of view, and can be used to secondary data analysis, to reveal broad-scale spatial patterns. As recent publications indicate, several floristic novelties can be found even in well-studied areas. In this article, we give data about occurrences of 28 species, among them 19 protected and 3 strictly protected ones. The focus of the paper is on the Maros-angle and the Villány Mts, but other areas from South Hungary are also represented. In two cases, coenological relevés are also provided. Knowledge on the localities of the strictly protected Astragalus dasyanthus, Ephedra distachya and Ophrys sphegodes reported here, accompanied by localities of other protected and rare species may be used for designating protected areas and performing more effective conservation measures.