Selected recent publications

2022

Tóth, Á., Deák, B., Tóth, K., Kiss, R., Lukács, K., Rádai, Z., Godó, L., Borza, S., Kelemen, A., Miglécz, T., Bátori, Z., Novák, T.J., Valkó, O. (2022): Vertical distribution of soil seed bank and the ecological importance of deeply buried seeds in alkaline grasslands. PeerJ 10: e13226. 

2020

Valkó, O., Deák, B., Lukács, K., Kiss, R., Miglécz, T., Tóth, K., Tóth, Á., Godó, L., Radócz, Sz., Sonkoly, J., Kelemen, A., Tóthmérész, B. (2020): Laundry washing increases dispersal efficiency of cloth-dispersed seeds. NeoBiota 60: pp. 1-16.

Ágnes Tóth

PhD student, University of Szeged (supervisors: Orsolya Valkó, Zoltán Bátori)

✉ toth.agnes.05@gmail.com  

Research interests

Soil seed bank

Soil seed banks, including dormant and non-dormant seeds, present on the soil surface and in the soil, play an important role in population dynamics and diversity maintenance in almost all ecosystems throughout the world. Since the area of natural habitats, including several grassland types is still rapidly declining, it is an important task to conserve their species richness. Soil seed banks, as nature-based solutions, can provide an important basis for the conservation and restoration of several habitat types. The vast majority of the published seed bank studies usually examined only the uppermost soil layers (generally 10-20 cm), therefore the knowledge on the depth distribution, species composition and density of seed banks as well as the ecological significance of deeply buried seeds is limited. My PhD topic is related studying the vertical distribution and the diversity of the seed bank in several habitat types such as alkaline grasslands, sandy grasslands and wetlands. Our aim is to sample soil seed bank down to deeper layers than former studies in order to fill the knowledge gaps related to the deeply buried seeds. Furthermore, we also study the potential conribution of deeply buried seeds to habitat restoration.