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The herbarium of Debrecen University (DE) I. The “Rezső Soó Herbarium”
142-155Views:166The paper introduces the herbarium of Debrecen University (DE). All specimens of the herbarium were documented by digital photographs, and all data from the labels were entered into an Excel spreadsheet. The largest collection of Herbarium DE, the “Soó Rezső Herbarium” (abbreviation: SRH) consists of ca. 38.000 specimens from almost all European countries, but mainly from Hungary and the neighbouring countries. Most of the specimens originate from Hajdú-Bihar, Pest, Győr-Moson-Sopron, Borsod-Abaúj-Zemplén, Veszprém and Szabolcs-Szatmár-Bereg counties. The SRH stores a considerable amount of original/authentic specimens collected by Hungarian botanists, primarily by Rezső Soó and his followers, as well as Sándor Polgár. The most rapid growth of the SRH took place in the first half of the last century (1930–1950). By contrast, the collection was practically not developed between 1955 and 2000. After the millennium it started to grow again. Data on the most substantial part of the SRH covering native plants collected in the present-day Hungary are summarized in Electronic Appendix 1. (incl. taxon name, settlement, collecting date, collector, file name of documentary photograph).
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The role of soil seed bank in restoration and dynamics of Hungarian plant communities
116-135Views:118Soil seed bank has an important role in maintaining plant populations and communities, in regeneration processes, and also provides information about the history of the studied site, the past land use practices, the biotic and abiotic changes and about the current degradation degree. In Hungary there are many researchers related to the seed bank, but from the last few years we do not have a comprehensive work about the results of these works. My goal is to report on the results of former seed bank researches in Hungary and also to highlight the missing topics and further research opportunities. The review is based on 49 articles, the oldest one dates back to 1922, the newest one was published in 2015. Most of the studies use greenhouse or laboratory germination tests to determine the viability of seeds. The earliest studies, which examined the weed seed bank of farmland soils found, that the seed bank was much higher than the total seed bank found on natural and semi-natural habitats studied later. Researchers found the lowest seed bank density in forests. Disturbed sites and former agricultural sites had higher seed bank densities than sites without agricultural use. Most part of seed bank was located in the upper soil layer in all studied communities. In most studies usually a small similarity was detected between the composition of soil seed bank and aboveground vegetation, which suggests that the seed bank has a subordinate role in regeneration processes. Seed bank type classification is lacking from the three-quarter of Hungarian flora species, despite that it is essential for protecting species and communities and for developing proper protection against invasive and alien species.