Margit Babos
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Margit Babos (
maiden name When a person (traditionally the wife in many cultures) assumes the family name of their spouse, in some countries and cultures that name replaces the person's previous surname, which in the case of the wife is called the maiden name ("birth name" ...
Margit Greskovits, 1931–2009) was a Hungarian
mycologist Mycology is the branch of biology concerned with the study of fungi, including their taxonomy, genetics, biochemical properties, and use by humans. Fungi can be a source of tinder, food, traditional medicine, as well as entheogens, poison, and ...
born on 28 October 1931 in
Budapest Budapest is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns of Hungary, most populous city of Hungary. It is the List of cities in the European Union by population within city limits, tenth-largest city in the European Union by popul ...
. She became one of the most widely recognized mycologists in the second half of the 20th century in
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
, with contributions to mycological research, fungal
taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...
and recording the mycoflora of Hungary.


Bibliographical data

Babos joined the plant
herbarium A herbarium (plural: herbaria) is a collection of preserved plant biological specimen, specimens and associated data used for scientific study. The specimens may be whole plants or plant parts; these will usually be in dried form mounted on a sh ...
of the
Hungarian Natural History Museum The Hungarian Natural History Museum () in Budapest, dating back to 1802, houses the largest natural history collections of Hungary and the region. History of the museum Foundation In 1802, Count Ferenc Széchényi offered his library and h ...
in 1951, first as a curator in the
paleobotany Paleobotany or palaeobotany, also known as paleophytology, is the branch of botany dealing with the recovery and identification of plant fossils from geological contexts, and their use for the biological reconstruction of past environments ( pal ...
department, then in the
phycology Phycology () is the scientific study of algae. Also known as algology, phycology is a branch of life science. Algae are important as primary producers in aquatic ecosystems. Most algae are eukaryotic, photosynthetic organisms that live in a ...
department. In 1954, she joined the Mycology Department under the supervision of Dr. Gábor Bohus. They adopted the modified Herpell exsiccation method which resulted in well-preserved dried specimens of fungi. Although this was a tedious method and often required the process to be started in the field, Babos prepared more than 20,000 Herpell-exsiccata, which forms a valuable part of the fungus collection of the Hungarian National History Museum. Shortly after joining the Mycology Department, she started participating in ongoing research activities, which mostly focused on recording and cataloguing the mushroom flora of Hungary and the renovation and organization of the Fungal Herbarium. She was promoted as a major museologist of the Hungarian National History Museum.


Research activities

Her research resided around the fungal flora of the continental sand dune systems in Hungary. She performed extensive field work and collecting of fungi in several sites with moving
sand dune A dune is a landform composed of wind- or water-driven sand. It typically takes the form of a mound, ridge, or hill. An area with dunes is called a dune system or a dune complex. A large dune complex is called a dune field, while broad, flat ...
s, dry sandy
grassland A grassland is an area where the vegetation is dominance (ecology), dominated by grasses (Poaceae). However, sedge (Cyperaceae) and rush (Juncaceae) can also be found along with variable proportions of legumes such as clover, and other Herbaceo ...
s, wet and
marsh In ecology, a marsh is a wetland that is dominated by herbaceous plants rather than by woody plants.Keddy, P.A. 2010. Wetland Ecology: Principles and Conservation (2nd edition). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, UK. 497 p More in genera ...
y interdune habitats and dry
steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...
forests in Hungary. Many of her research sites belonged to the Kiskunság National Park or the
Hortobágy National Park Hortobágy () is an 800 km2 national park in eastern Hungary, rich with folklore and cultural history. The park, a part of the Alföld (Great Plain), was designated as a national park in 1973 (the first in Hungary), and elected among the W ...
and the knowledge gathered still forms the basis of our understanding of the European continental sand dune mycoflora. She made extensive comparisons with coastal,
halophilic A halophile (from the Greek word for 'salt-loving') is an extremophile that thrives in high salt concentrations. In chemical terms, halophile refers to a Lewis acidic species that has some ability to extract halides from other chemical species. ...
sand dunes and was always delighted by the high species overlap between these habitats despite great geography distances. She has reported the occurrence in Hungary many of the species described from coastal sand dunes in France and Spain, most of which were new for the Hungarian mycoflora. While recording fungi from sandy habitats, she became a specialist of several groups of fungi. She was an internationally renown expert of '' Lepiota'' s.l. ''Inocybe'' ''Pluteus''Babos M. (1983): Mycological examination of sawdust depots in Hungary. II. – Studia bot. hung. 16: 49–52. but has made important contributions to several other groups of fungi as well, such as '' Bolbitius'', '' Rhodocybe'', '' Coprinus'', '' Tricholosporum'', and '' Leucopaxillus''. Babos collected the
type Type may refer to: Science and technology Computing * Typing, producing text via a keyboard, typewriter, etc. * Data type, collection of values used for computations. * File type * TYPE (DOS command), a command to display contents of a file. * ...
materials of several ''
Cortinarius ''Cortinarius'' is a globally distributed genus of fungus in the family Cortinariaceae. Its members are commonly known by the names cortinar and webcap. It is suspected to be the largest genus of agarics, containing over 2,000 widespread species ...
'' and ''
Agaricus ''Agaricus'' is a genus of mushroom-forming fungi containing both edible and poisonous species, with over 400 members worldwide and possibly again as many disputed or newly discovered species. The genus includes the common ("button") mushroom ...
'' species, which she described together with Gábor Bohus. She worked with several major figures of mycology of the time, including Albert Pilát, Marcel Bon, and Johann Stangl. During her taxonomic work, she described 12 new
taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...
:Vasas (2010), p. 12. * '' Collybia distorta var. amara'' Babos 1983. * '' Coprinus micaceus var. mammosus'' Babos 1976. * '' Inocybe aeruginascens'' Babos in Bohus 1970. * '' Inocybe javorkae'' Babos & Stangl 1985. * '' Leucoagaricus brunneolilacinus'' Babos 1980. * '' Leucocoprinus pilatianus var. erubescens'' Babos 1979. * '' Macrolepiota excoriata f. barlae'' Babos 1974. * '' Pluteus nigroviridis'' Babos 1983. * '' Pluteus variabilicolor'' Babos 1978. * '' Rhodocybe popinalis var. hollosii'' Babos in Babos et al. 1994. * '' Tricholoma eosinobasis'' Babos, Bohus & Vasas 1991. * '' Tricholoma nodulosporum'' Babos & Bohus in Bohus 1983. She has also made numerous new taxonomic combinations in ''Lepiota, Rhodocybe, Tricholoma'', and others. As a commemoration of her scientific achievements, three species of fungi have been named in her honour: * '' Agaricus babosiae'' Bohus 1990, Ann. Hist.-Nat. Mus. Natn. Hung. 81: 37. * '' Leucoagaricus babosiae'' Bon 1993, Doc. Mycol. 22(88): 31. * '' Coprinopsis babosiae'' L. Nagy, Vagvolgyi & Papp 2013 In addition to sand dunes, she performed extensive research in the fungi growing on sawdust and wood-chips piles, a special habitat with unique fungal associations. She reported over 100 species from sawdust and described three new species, ''Pluteus variabilicolor, P. nigroviridis'' and ''Collybia distorta var. amara''. She was also interested in the fungi occurring in floating
bog A bog or bogland is a wetland that accumulates peat as a deposit of dead plant materials often mosses, typically sphagnum moss. It is one of the four main types of wetlands. Other names for bogs include mire, mosses, quagmire, and musk ...
s. In collaboration with Gábor Bohus, they contributed significantly to the clarification of the taxonomy of ''Agaricus'' mushrooms in Europe. In this genus belong one of the most widely produced mushroom, ''
Agaricus bisporus ''Agaricus bisporus'', commonly known as the cultivated mushroom, is a basidiomycete mushroom native to grasslands in Eurasia and North America. It is cultivated in more than 70 countries and is one of the most commonly and widely consumed ...
'', the button mushroom. They also performed extensive experiments on establishing cultivation protocols for additional ''Agaricus'' species, such as '' Agaricus macrosporus'' and '' A. macrosporoides''. She has also investigated ''
Diptera Flies are insects of the order Diptera, the name being derived from the Greek δι- ''di-'' "two", and πτερόν ''pteron'' "wing". Insects of this order use only a single pair of wings to fly, the hindwings having evolved into advance ...
'' (flies) living in mushroom fruit bodies and determined the specificity and distribution of ''Diptera'' species in various fungal species.


Major publications

Margit Babos published 115 research papers and popular articles between 1958 and 2004. Her most monumental works include the Catalogue of Hungarian Macrofungi (Agaricales s.l.) in 1989 which summarized the state of the art knowledge on the occurrence and distributions of macroscopic mushrooms of the broadly understood order
Agaricales The Agaricales are an order (biology), order of fungi in the division (mycology), division Basidiomycota. As originally conceived, the order contained all the agarics (gilled mushrooms), but subsequent research has shown that not all agarics are ...
. It is based on the macrofungi collections of the Hungarian Natural History Museum, which has been re-established, catalogued and organized after World War II by Margit Babos and Gábor Bohus. In addition, she published two volumes on the macrofungi of the Kiskunság and the Hortobágy National Parks which give the foundation of the mycological knowledge on continental sandy areas. On the international stage, her best-known works are those on the taxonomy of ''Lepiota s.l.'' fungi and the genus ''Inocybe''. Together with Gábor Bohus, she published a volume of Fungorum rariorum icones coloratae, Pars VIII in 1977. Babos published several books and identification guides and gave hundreds of lectures and seminars on fungal biology in Hungarian.


Awards and distinctions

Her contributions to Hungarian and European mycology have been recognized by several awards. She has received the Clusius Medallion of the Hungarian Mycological Society twice, in 1974 and 2009. She has been awarded a Budapest Medallion during the 12th Cortinarius Congress (1994), the Laszlo Szemere Medallion of the First Hungarian Truffle Society (2004). She has been granted knighthood by the "Szent Laszlo Truffle Order" on 10 September 2005. In 2008 the journal "Magyar Gombasz" (Hungarian Mycology) recognized her oeuvre by an award (oeuvre-award). Her last honour, the Effectrix Magnus Collectiones Award of the Hungarian National History Museum was awarded to her in 2009, one month before her death, on 27 December. In 2010 a foray was held in Kiskunság National Park in her honour, where almost 70 species of macrofungi were identified.Lukács (2011), p. 45.


Notes


Cited literature

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Babos, Margit 1931 births 2009 deaths Hungarian mycologists Women mycologists 20th-century women scientists Hungarian women curators