Balazs Vagi

Balazs Vagi
University of Debrecen · Department of Evolutionary Zoology and Human Biology

PhD

About

31
Publications
9,364
Reads
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371
Citations
Additional affiliations
October 2012 - February 2014
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
Position
  • Predoctoral Research Fellow
September 2008 - September 2011
Eötvös Loránd University
Position
  • PhD Student

Publications

Publications (31)
Article
The adult sex ratio (ASR, the proportion of males in the adult population) is an emerging predictor of reproductive behaviour, and recent studies in birds and humans suggest it is a major driver of social mating systems and parental care. ASR may also influence genetic mating systems. For instance male-skewed ASRs are expected to increase the frequ...
Article
Full-text available
Complex parenting has been proposed to contribute to the evolutionary success of vertebrates. However, the evolutionary routes to complex parenting and the role of parenting in vertebrate diversity are still contentious. Although basal vertebrates provide clues to complex reproduction, these are often understudied. Using 181 species that represent...
Article
Full-text available
Aim Amphibians exhibit unusually diverse reproductive modes, including a wide array of parental care strategies. The evolutionary drivers of this diversity, however, remain unclear. Here, we investigate three major factors that might predict interspecific variation in parental care strategies: climate, intrasexual selection and social environment....
Article
Full-text available
Frogs and toads (Anura) exhibit some of the most diverse parental strategies in vertebrates. Identifying the evolutionary origins of parenting is fundamental to understanding the relationships between sexual selection, social evolution and parental care systems of contemporary Anura. Moreover, par-enting has been hypothesized to allow the invasion...
Article
Among vertebrates, ray-finned fishes (Actinopterygii) display the highest diversity in parental care, and their diversification has been hypothesized to be related to phylogenetic changes in fertilization modes. Using the most comprehensive, sex-specific data from 7600 species of 62 extant orders of ray-finned fishes, we inferred ancestral states a...
Article
Full-text available
The ecological and life history drivers of the diversification of reproductive modes in early vertebrates are not fully understood. Sharks, rays and chimaeras (group Chondrichthyes) have an unusually diverse variety of reproductive modes and are thus an ideal group to test the factors driving the evolution of reproductive complexity. Here, using 96...
Article
Full-text available
Analyzing hybrid zones allows insight into interactions between previously isolated lineages. The distributions of fire-bellied toads (Bombina bombina) and yellow-bellied toads (B. variegata) meet in the Carpathian Basin. We aimed to explore the genetic composition of a transient zone between the two sister species along a transect in the Carpathia...
Article
Full-text available
Sex determination systems are highly variable in vertebrates, although neither the causes nor the implications of this diversity are fully understood. Theory suggests that sex determination is expected to relate to sexual size dimorphism, because environmental sex determination promotes sex‐specific developmental bias in embryonic growth rates. Fur...
Preprint
Full-text available
Analyzing hybrid zones between previously isolated lineages allows insight into processes determining the fate of re-encounter of these taxa. The distributions of Fire-bellied ( Bombina bombina ) and Yellow-bellied toads ( B. variegata ) meet in the Carpathian Basin resulting in a narrow contact zone in the foothill regions, where hybrids often app...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
A 2020 tavaszán kitört koronavírus járvány miatt lehetetlenné vált több szakmai konferencia megtartása, éppúgy, mint a nagyközönség számára is nyitott, tudománynépszerűsítő előadások megvalósítása. Erre a helyzetre válaszul, a személyes találkozást igénylő hagyományos konferenciák alternatívájaként hoztuk létre az Online Biológia Konferencia nevű k...
Conference Paper
Full-text available
Global social and environmental problems (demographic expansion, habitat destructions, biodiversity crisis) urgently seeking not only for the work of professionals in conservation and environmental policies, but also a society-level involvement in the protection of our local and extended environment. The scope of our work is to present the wide per...
Article
Full-text available
Sex‐biased dispersal is common in vertebrates, although the ecological and evolutionary causes of sex differences in dispersal are debated. Here, we investigate sex differences in both natal and breeding dispersal distances using a large dataset on birds including 86 species from 41 families. Using phylogenetic comparative analyses, we investigate...
Article
Full-text available
Albania is part of the Mediterranean biodiversity hotspot. Yet its amphibian fauna is poorly known due to little scientific exploration during the long political isolation of the country. To fill this gap, we constructed a georeferenced database with occurrences of all known amphibian species based on records from published sources and personal data...
Article
Full-text available
Reproductive interference can seriously affect the reproductive success of involved individuals and may lead to local exclusion of the competitively inferior species. The components of male competitiveness in direct bodily fights for females have been studied rarely in a heterospecific context. In explosively breeding anuran amphibians, males are o...
Article
Vipera ursinii graeca is a restricted-range, endemic snake of the Pindos mountain range in the southwestern Balkans. The subspecies was previously reported from eight localities in Greece and one locality in southern Albania. We used species distribution modelling based on climate data from known localities in Greece to estimate the potential distr...
Article
Full-text available
In this paper Abbreviata abbreviata (Rudolphi, 1819) is recorded in Albania as a new nematode parasite for Malpolon insignitus (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, 1827).
Article
Full-text available
The Saker Falcon is a falconid raptor species with Palearctic distribution. It has never been a common bird in Hungary, now there are cc. 220-230 nesting pairs within the country borders. Currently total world population is cc. 19 000-34 000 individuals. Its taxonomic status is complicated. Two subspecies are distinguished (Falco c. cherrug and Fal...
Article
Full-text available
Experimental evidence suggests that reproductive interference between heterospecifics can seriously affect individual fitness; support from field studies for such an effect has, however, remained scarce. We studied reproductive interference in 25 natural breeding ponds in an area where two ranid frogs, Rana dalmatina and Rana temporaria, co-occur....
Article
Temporary ponds are characterized as being in natural or close to natural states in Central and Eastern Europe, especially those located in forested landscapes. As these ponds function as breeding sites for many amphibians, they represent an ideal target to explore the terrestrial and aquatic habitat preferences of different species. We surveyed 13...
Article
Full-text available
There is growing interest in sperm senescence, both in its underlying mechanisms and evolutionary consequences, because it can impact the evolution of numerous life history traits. Previous studies have documented various types of sperm senescence, but evidence of post-meiotic intra-testicular sperm senescence in wild animals is lacking. To assess...
Article
Full-text available
The theory of life history evolution assumes trade-offs between competing fitness traits such as reproduction, somatic growth, and maintenance. One prediction of this theory is that if large individuals have a higher reproductive success, small/young individuals should invest less in reproduction and allocate more resources in growth than large/old...
Article
Az MME Kétéltű-és Hüllővédelmi Szakosztálya 2011-ben programot indított a haragossikló (Dolichophis caspius) megmaradt Budapest környéki élőhelyeinek feltérképezése, az állományok felmérése és a szükséges természetvédelmi kezelés megindítása céljából. Márciustól szeptember végéig összesen 10 alkalommal 4 élőhelyet jártunk be. Egyikük két, összesen...
Article
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The common wall lizard (Podarcis muralis LAURENTI, 1768) is the most abundant reptile species in the urban environments of Hungary. Like other lacertids, it is an effective heliothermic thermoregulator, which prefers sunny, open surfaces. This type of habitat could be found in higher numbers in cities and suburbs than in the natural environment of...
Article
Full-text available
In 2011, the Amphibian and Reptile Conservation Group (ARCG) of BirdLife Hungary launched a conservation programme to survey the North Hungarian populations of Dolichophis caspius and its habitats in the vicinity of Budapest, and to build up a habitat management plan for the species. From March through the end of September we made a total of ten vi...
Article
Full-text available
Due to improving environmental regulations motorway constructions are now subject to environmental impact assessment, in order to designate the most appropriate location of animal tunnels. For the most appropriate design we examined tunnel use by amphibians along 3 motorways of Hungary. The study included counting of the specimens of 9 amphibian an...
Article
Full-text available
In mating systems with intense male–male competition for mates, males may coerce females into matings that impose fitness costs. Females able to alleviate negative fitness effects of sexual coercion by enforcing their mating preferences should have a selective advantage. What behaviours females of externally fertilizing species use to reduce costs...
Article
Fertilization is of central importance in the determination of reproductive success for both males and females. In species where males have the chance to mate repeatedly within a short period of time, sperm stocks may become depleted and males may have to carefully economize on their sperm reserves. Also, intensive intrasexual competition for femal...

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