Imre Sándor Piross

HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research · Institute for Ecology and Botany

Urban green areas offer diverse flower resources for pollinators. Yet, the role of non-native plant species in local plant-pollinator networks is understudied. We explored the effects of plant origin, nationwide distribution, flower color and type on flower visitation by wild bees and honey bees as well as the structure of a plant-pollinator networ...

Full text at: http://www.huveta.hu/handle/10832/3108 Avian Lice (Phthiraptera: Amblycera, Ischnocera) are common, low pathogenic ectoparasites of birds. Their long coevolutionary history with their hosts make them worthy subjects for studying the ecology and evolution of parasitism. Ecology of Avian lice The abundance and population dynamics of...

Contrasting reductionistic versus holistic views, it is a general question whether adding the parts equals the sum. In the time of multiple drivers of anthropogenic change, it is a crucial issue, and better understanding additivity is critical for strategy and management. More particular research questions ask what are the community effects of the...

Sex-biassed and age-biassed parasite infections are common in nature, including ectoparasites-vertebrate host systems. We investigated the effect of Amur Falcons’ sex, age and body size on the abundance of their lice at a migratory stopover site, where the falcons’ habitat use and behaviour are more homogeneous across sex and age categories than du...

Permanent ectoparasites live in stable environments; thus, their population dynamics are mostly adapted to changes in the host life cycle. We aimed to investigate how static and dynamic traits of red-footed falcons interplay with the dynamics of their louse subpopulations during breeding and how they affect the colonisation of new hosts by lice. We...

Rensch's rule (RR) postulates that in comparisons across closely related species, male body size relative to female size increases with the average size of the species. This holds true in several vertebrate and also in certain free-living invertebrate taxa. Here, we document the validity of RR in avian lice using three families (Philopteridae, Meno...

The book summarizes the abstracts, programs and useful information for the 6th Fresh Blood for FreshWater Conference, which was held in Tihany, Hungary, 2019.04.23-27.

Avian malaria parasites can negatively affect many aspects of the life of the passerines. Though these parasites may strongly affect the health and thus migration patterns of the birds also during autumn, previous studies on avian malaria focused mainly on the spring migration and the breeding periods of the birds. We investigated whether the preva...

Background: Lice are common ectoparasites of birds, completing their entire life cycle in the plumage. Transmission – in most cases – requires physical contact between hosts. Lice may benefit from choosing host individuals with better survival prospects and dispersal chances. Bodily contacts between parents and offsprings provide a good opportunity...

Exploratory analyses of migration timing and morphometrics of the Dunnock (Prunella modularis). – Ornis Hungarica 24(2): 127–144. Abstract Ornithological studies often rely on large temporal scale ringing datasets as source of information. However, basic descriptive statistics of collected data are rarely provided. In order to fill this gap, here w...

Exploratory analyses of migration timing and morphometrics of the Pied Flycatcher (Ficedula hypoleuca). – Ornis Hungarica 24(2): 109–126. Abstract Ornithological studies often rely on large temporal scale ringing datasets as source of information. However, basic descriptive statistics of collected data are rarely provided. In order to fill this gap...

Active conservation measures often entail supplementing scarce resources, such as food or nesting site to high conservation value species. We hypothesized that adequate nest material in reasonable distance is a scarce resource for Rooks breeding in open grassland habitats of Hungary. Here we show that Rooks willingly utilize large quantities of pro...

Selecting a suitable breeding habitats and a nest-site within are crucial decisions birds have to make. Free ranging solitary Kestrels may use public information derived from leftover pellets and prey remnants from previous conspecific breeding attempts to assess location quality. However, this information may also indicate potentially higher nestl...

Little is known about the louse species harboured by Red-footed and Amur Falcons despite the fact that various life-history traits of these hosts make them good model species to study host-parasite interactions. We collected lice samples from fully grown Amur (n=20) and Red-footed Falcons (n=59), and from nestlings of Red-footed Falcons (n=179) in...

Background & Aim Recently several associations have been discovered regarding the effects of meteorological parameters on cardiovascular diseases. Previous studies often concentrated on arbitrarily defined rare and sudden changes in weather. Our aim was to investigate the most susceptible patients and to explore the effects of the degree of changes...