Authors: Lukács, Katalin; Tóth, Ágnes;Tóth, Katalin;Kiss, Réka;Kelemen, András;Bátori, Zoltán;Tölgyesi, Csaba;Hábenczyus, Alida Anna;Deák, Balázs;Valkó, Orsolya ;

In our daily lives, we often notice a large number of seeds and fruits attached on our clothing and footwear. There are several studies that highlight environmental problems caused by the human-vectored seed dispersal (HVD) and subsequent establishment of non-native seeds in protected areas. In a multi-site field experiment we collected propagules from socks and shoes from volunteer participants. In the analyses we used variables related to the movement of people, their clothing and the visited habitats. A total of 250 samples were collected from 87 people in Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic. We have identified 219 species of 35933 fruits/seeds. We also conducted a questionnaire survey, which showed that most people already clean their footwear from diaspores in the field, while others prefer to leave these propagules in their footwear. According to our results, HVD can support the dispersal of many plant species, especially disturbance-tolerants and weeds in Central-Europe. Therefore, it is very important to minimize the chances of these species spreading in the nature reserves. Furthermore, it is essential to keep visitors properly informed about this phenomenon.