**5. Conclusions**

We concluded that wood pastures are key habitats for dung beetle conservation, as they harbor dung beetle assemblages that show a transition between forest and grassland assemblages. Wood pastures should not be viewed as a refuge for all forest species [76], but as a transitional habitat where some forest and pasture species can be conserved into one habitat. Therefore, wood pastures must be maintained and their characteristically large trees need to be conserved and replaced if needed. Proper managemen<sup>t</sup> by grazing livestock is also essential not only for dung beetles but for various ecologically important taxa. The conservation of such ecosystems should be a priority. Throughout Europe, there are already several completed or ongoing projects aimed at the restoration and conservation managemen<sup>t</sup> of wood pastures. Such actions should be funded more widely for the benefits they provide both in terms of their unique biodiversity and local livelihoods not only in Europe, but worldwide.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at http://www.mdpi.com/1999-4907/12/1/25/s1, Sampling locations (KMZ file).

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, L.S.; methodology, L.S.; field and lab work, L.S. and R.Á.; data curation, L.S., R.Á., and V.S.; formal analysis, V.S.; writing—original draft preparation, L.S., V.S., G.B., R.Á. and A.B.; writing—review and editing, L.S., V.S., G.B., R.Á. and A.B.; supervision, A.B.; funding acquisition, A.B. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research was funded by the Doctoral School of Environmental Sciences of the Szent István University, the "Sustainable use of ecosystem services—research for mitigating the negative effect of climate change, land use change and biological invasion" project (GINOP-2.3.2-15-2016-00019), and partly by the EU H2020 project SUPER-G (https://www.super-g.eu, gran<sup>t</sup> agreemen<sup>t</sup> N. 774124). V.S. was funded by the National Research, Development and Innovation Office (FK 123813).

**Acknowledgments:** We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments. We would also like to thank Krisztián Harmos (Bükk National Park) for field assistance, as well as Brigitta Palotás and Anikó Zölei for their help in preparing the paper.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
