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Vast grassland areas disappear due to abandonment, conversion to arable fields or urban areas. Consequently, grassland species have declined dramatically during and since the last century. The majority of remaining European grasslands are managed, many of them by mowing, which, in general, decreases arthropods' abundance and species richness. Here, we aimed to study the effects of width and proportion of refuge areas on local abundance and richness of arthropods in hay meadows. Within a ca. 4000 ha semi‐natural grassland area of the Great Hungarian Plain, we established refuge strips of different widths (3 and 9 m) and proportion of total field area (10 and 25%) following a randomised block design with six replicates per treatment. We studied five arthropod groups (grasshoppers, true bugs, carabids and ground‐dwelling and vegetation‐dwelling spiders), which we sampled 2 weeks after mowing by sweep netting and pitfall traps. Uncut strips were warmer and moister than the mown areas. The effects of refuge strips and their arrangement were stronger on the vegetation‐dwelling than on ground‐dwelling arthropods, although all taxa were affected in some way. We found more true bugs in mown areas between narrow strips than between wide strips. The interaction effect of width and proportion of refuge strips on the abundance of grasshoppers, ground‐dwelling spiders and species richness of carabids showed that wider strips are more beneficial if their proportion is low and narrow strips are more beneficial with high proportion. Synthesis and applications: Our findings provide evidence that uncut refuge strips can harbour diverse and abundant arthropod assemblages in hay meadows and mitigate the adverse effects of uniformly executed mowing on arthropods. Modifying attributes and considering farming practices, wide strips with a low (10%) proportion of total field area seem optimal for both conservation and practitioners. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Grassland ecosystems undergo dramatic habitat loss and fragmentation worldwide due to agricultural expansion and intensification. Among different taxonomic groups, grassland arthropods are particularly sensitive to this process and, therefore, are exposed to considerable risk.Although many studies focus on land use impacts on arthropod diversity, these mostly consider taxonomic diversity and neglect trait‐mediated functional responses. However, studying functional diversity often provides more accurate insights into ecosystem processes.Here, we assessed the effect of fragment size and connectivity on the functional composition (community‐weighted mean trait values) and diversity (Rao's quadratic entropy) of two diverse and abundant arthropod groups: spiders and true bugs. We assigned functional traits for more than 300 species collected from 30 sandy steppe (forest‐steppes) and 30 loess steppe fragments (kurgans) in the southern part of the Hungarian Great Plain.Functional responses to fragmentation were observed for spiders in forest‐steppes and for true bugs in kurgans. We found higher functional diversity in better‐connected fragments for spiders and in small fragments for both groups. We collected small, humidity‐preferring and web‐building spiders in small fragments, and there were more ballooning spiders with moist habitat preferences in well‐connected fragments. Furthermore, increasing grassland connectivity resulted in a significantly higher proportion of polyphagous and humidity‐preferring individuals in the true bug communities.Our results highlight the importance of small grassland fragments in maintaining high arthropod functional diversity. Even small fragments in a well‐connected grassland network can promote ecosystem functioning and associated services within human‐dominated landscapes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Present paper contains faunistical data obtained by the joint research of Babes-Bolyai, Sapienta and Szeged University. 1053 heteroptera specimens of 117 species were collected. A brief review of the heteroptera studies of Dobrogea is given.

Drainage canals are widespread components of agricultural landscapes. Although canals have greatly contributed to biodiversity loss by desiccating wetlands, they have recently attracted conservation attention due to their potential to function as refugia for native species in intensively managed landscapes. However, their conservation role in complex landscapes composed of agricultural fields and desiccated but otherwise untransformed, semi‐natural habitats, on which canals still pose a heavy burden, is unknown. Improved understanding of drainage canals and related biodiversity in these landscapes could help unlock their potential and support synergistic land management for nature conservation and water resource management.We applied a multi‐taxon approach, including plants, butterflies, true bugs, spiders and birds, to (a) assess the conservation value of drainage canals with temporary water cover in a heavily drained European lowland region, (b) to test landscape‐level and local canal parameters for aiding prioritization among canals and (c) to propose a reconciliation‐based management framework that suits the interest of all stakeholders.We found that drainage canals and their banks concentrate more species across most taxa than semi‐natural, mostly grassland habitats, possibly due to micro‐environmental heterogeneity and the absence of low‐intensity annual management compared to grasslands. Canals traversing semi‐natural grasslands concentrate particularly high numbers of native species, but agricultural canals also support remarkable species richness. However, agricultural canals are important dispersal corridors for non‐native invasive plants, which may negatively affect native biodiversity. Canal size has little effect on biodiversity, but habitat stress is an important determinant. The higher the stress (due to sandiness and salinity), the higher the added value of canals to landscape‐wide biodiversity.Synthesis and applications. We show that drainage canals can harbour high biodiversity and should therefore be recognized as important novel ecosystems with high conservation value, even when cutting through semi‐natural grassland habitats. Canals have previously been considered detrimental to nature conservation due to their association with loss of wetlands. However, by reducing water loss with reversible obstructions, controlling invasive species and applying specific conservation measures, they may be turned into conservation allies without compromising long‐term interests of water management and agricultural land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Floodplain forests are among the most threatened habitats in Europe and contain a highly diverse and characteristic fauna. We tested the effect of landscape and habitat attributes on the structure of spider assemblages of river islands and floodplain forests along the Mures River, Western Romania. The fieldwork was carried out in seven islands and seven riverbank forest sites. Spiders were collected with pitfall traps. We found significant association between habitat structure and rarefaction diversity and species composition of spider assemblages. The type of the sites (i.e. island vs. riverbank) also influenced the composition of the spider assemblages. However, there was no relationship between the landscape attributes and the spider assemblages, presumably due to the presence of large non-flooded forests in the study area, which may serve as overwintering habitat for the floodplain fauna. The present study emphasizes the importance of protecting river islands and floodplain forests for preservation of the regional species richness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]