Sandor A. BoldoghAggtelek National Park Directorate · Nature Conservation Dept.
Sandor A. Boldogh
MsC, PhD
About
63
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Introduction
Publications
Publications (63)
Anaplasma phagocytophilum is the causative agent of granulocytic anaplasmosis in humans, dogs, cats, horses and tick-borne fever in ruminants. In Europe, its main vector is the tick species Ixodes ricinus . In this study, spleen and liver samples, as well as ticks from 18 wild-living mammals (belonging to seven species) were analysed for the presen...
Wild birds are threatened by anthropic effects on a global scale, and their adenoviruses might contribute to their endangerment. Thus, it is important to reveal the real biodiversity of avian adenoviruses, as, unfortunately, this research topic is far from being prioritized. The turkey hemorrhagic enteritis is an economically important disease caus...
Background
Among live wild mammals adapted to urban and peri-urban habitats in Europe, members of the families Felidae, Mustelidae and Sciuridae deserve special attention as pathogen reservoirs because all of these families include members that are kept as pets. We report here the results of our study on two important groups of tick-borne protozoan...
Some filoviruses can be transmitted to humans by zoonotic spillover events from their natural host and filovirus outbreaks have occured with increasing frequency in the last years. The filovirus Lloviu virus (LLOV), was identified in 2002 in Schreiber’s bats ( Miniopterus schreibersii ) in Spain and was subsequently detected in bats in Hungary. Her...
Purpose
Our main goal was to develop novel sampling protocol and study design for viral discovery and monitoring in bats to support multi purposal research activities (ie. detection, sequencing, serology, isolation) with minimal conservational effect and disturbance. We tested this method within the framework of Lloviu cuevavirus (LLOV) surveillanc...
Filoviruses are prime examples of emerging human pathogens that are transmitted to humans by zoonotic spillover events. Since their initial discovery, filovirus outbreaks have occured with increasing frequency and intensity. There is an urgent need to better understand their enzootic ecology and pathogenic potential, given recent zoonotic virus spi...
Three Palearctic members of the subgenus Pholeoixodes, i.e., Ixodes canisuga, Ixodes hexagonus and Ixodes kaiseri are frequently collected from dogs, cats, red foxes, badgers and other carnivorous/insectivorous hosts in Europe. While a pictorial identification key has been reported for female Pholeoixodes ticks, a similar work has not been done on...
Polyomaviruses (PyVs) are small, circular dsDNA viruses carried by diverse vertebrates, including bats. Although previous studies have reported several horseshoe bat PyVs collected in Zambia and China, it is still unclear how PyVs evolved in this group of widely dispersed mammals. Horseshoe bats (genus Rhinolophus) are distributed across the Old Wo...
Increasing amount of data attest that (in the context of vector-borne infections) birds are not only important as hosts of blood-sucking arthropod vectors, but also as reservoirs of vector-borne pathogens. From 2015 to 2019 cadavers of 100 birds (from 45 species, nine orders) were collected in Hungary, and their organs were screened for DNA from a...
Infectious diseases can have devastating effects on populations, and the ability of a pathogen to persist in the environment can amplify these impacts. Understanding how environmental pathogen reservoirs influence the number of individuals that become infected and suffer mortality is essential for disease control and prevention. We integrated disea...
Bats are well adapted to inhabit human settlements and are suitable reservoirs of a high number of vector-borne pathogens with veterinary-medical importance. Owing to these eco-epidemiological traits, the importance of studying bat ectoparasites is increasingly recognized. However, relevant molecular-phylogenetic data are missing from several count...
Background
Despite the increasingly recognized eco-epidemiological significance of bats, data from molecular analyses of vector-borne bacteria in bat ectoparasites are lacking from several regions of the Old and New Worlds.
Methods
During this study, six species of ticks (630 specimens) were collected from bats in Hungary, Romania, Italy, Kenya, S...
Circular replication-associated protein encoding single-stranded DNA (CRESS DNA) viruses are increasingly recognized worldwide in a variety of samples. Representative members include well-described veterinary pathogens with worldwide distribution, such as porcine circoviruses or beak and feather disease virus. In addition, numerous novel viruses be...
The predominance of dietary viruses in bat guano samples had been described recently, suggesting a new opportunity to survey the prevalence and to detect new viruses of arthropods or even plant-infecting viruses circulating locally in the ecosystem. Here we describe the diversity of viruses belonging to the order Picornavirales in Hungarian insecti...
In Europe, several species of bats, owls and kestrels exemplify highly urbanised, flying vertebrates, which may get close to humans or domestic animals. Bat droppings and bird pellets may have epidemiological, as well as diagnostic significance from the point of view of pathogens. In this work 221 bat faecal and 118 bird pellet samples were screene...
Kinetoplastids are flagellated protozoa, including principally free-living bodonids and exclusively parasitic trypanosomatids. In the most species-rich ge-nus, Trypanosoma, more than thirty species were found to infect bats worldwide. Bat trypanosomes are also known to have played a significant role in the evolution of T. cruzi, a species with high...
Background
Bats are regarded as the primary (ancestral) hosts of bugs of the family Cimicidae. The historically and economically most important species in the family is the common bedbug (Cimex lectularius), because of its worldwide occurrence and association with humans. This molecular-phylogenetic study was initiated in order to expand the knowle...
Hibernating mammals arouse periodically from their torpor under the influence of an unknown mechanism to perform activities necessary for the correct functioning of metabolism. Our model species, the Mediterranean horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus euryale Blasius, 1853), wakes up during the winter and produces both typical consumptive as well as non-consu...
Argas vespertilionis is a geographically widespread haematophagous ectoparasite species of bats in the Old World, with a suspected role in the transmission of Babesia vesperuginis. The aims of the present study were (1) to molecularly screen A. vespertilionis larvae (collected in Europe, Africa and Asia) for the presence of piroplasms, and (2) to a...
The Corncrake is a threatened umbrella species for wet meadows, which mostly depends on managed grasslands. Therefore, effective conservation requires bird-friendly land management schemes and subsidies. Although the most important populations in Hungary usually breed in protected areas, some of these are regularly flooded, which forces Corncrakes...
In this study 308 ticks (Ixodes ariadnae: 26 larvae, 14 nymphs, five females; I. vespertilionis: 89 larvae, 27 nymphs, eight females; I. simplex: 80 larvae, 50 nymphs, nine females) have been collected from 200 individuals of 17 bat species in two countries, Hungary and Romania. After DNA extraction these ticks were molecularly analysed for the pre...
Geographical coordinates of collection sites in the present study.
Letters: A—Ariadne Cave System and caves in the Pilis Mountains, B—Bükk Highlands Cave System (see Fig 1).
(DOC)
The Corncrake is a strictly protected species in Hungary and a qualifying species of many Natura 2000 sites. Despite its Least concern global conservation status, it receives much attention and was elected as “Bird of the Year” by MME BirdLife Hungary in 2016. In this paper, we estimate its population trends and analyse the suitability of the prote...
We report the complete genome sequence and genetic characterization of a novel strain of Providence virus, detected in
Barbastella barbastellus
bat guano, collected in Hungary in 2014. Our data may facilitate the understanding of the evolutionary processes of this unique viral family of
Carmotetraviridae.
Savi's pipistrelle Hypsugo savii is a Mediterranean faunal element among the bats; it occurs in southern Europe, the Canary Islands, north-western Africa, most of the Mediterranean islands, in the northern part of the Middle East, in the Crimea, Caucasus, West Turkestan, and northern Afghanistan. The northern margin of its geographical range in Eur...
This paper provides a brief overview of the current status of the Corncrake in Hungary based on information received from the national park directorates, members of MME/Birdlife and own experiences of the authors. The size of the breeding population is estimated at 400-1,600 calling males in 2007-2015. Approximately 50 % of the population is found...
From over 1250 extant species of the order Chiroptera, 25 and 28 are known to occur in Germany and Hungary, respectively. Close to 350 samples originating from 28 bat species (17 from Germany, 27 from Hungary) were screened for the presence of adenoviruses (AdVs) using a nested PCR that targets the DNA polymerase gene of AdVs. An additional PCR was...
Bats are important reservoirs of many viruses with zoonotic potential worldwide, including Europe. Among bat viruses, members of the Picornaviridae family remain a neglected group. We performed viral metagenomic analyses on Miniopterus schreibersii bat fecal samples, collected in Hungary in 2013. In the present study we report the first molecular d...
Abstract Background: Bat-borne viruses pose a potential risk to human health and are the focus of increasing scientific interest. To start gaining information about bat-transmitted viruses in Hungary, we tested multiple bat species for several virus groups between 2012 and 2013.
Fecal samples were collected from bats across Hungary. We performed gr...
Emergence phenology has been shown to advance considerably in the past decades in many lepidopterans. Noctuid moths (Noctuidae) constitute a species-rich family of lepidopterans with a large diversity of life history traits presumably driving climatic responsiveness. In our study we aim to assess the role of life-history and ecological traits in cl...
We investigated the winter food of Mediterranean horseshoe bats (Rhinolophus euryale) in four winter cave roosts in southern Slovakia
and northern Hungary and investigated the relationship between food and ambient temperature. The bats were active during the whole
winter period and they produced excrement throughout the entire hibernation period, e...
Temperature during bats' parturition time has very important effects on the survival and development of young bats. Because the microclimate in buildings generally meets bats’ requirements during summer more than the microclimate in underground sites, many species often roost in buildings to breed in Central Europe. In addition, suitable natural ro...
Rhinolophus euryale is originally cave dwelling bat species reaches the northern border of its area in central Europe (Slovakia and Hungary). However, there is a major change in roost preference in summer observed in this region; the species started to use lofts and roofs since the 70's of the 20th century in Slovakia and Hungary as the result of t...
White-Nose Syndrome (WNS) is an emerging devastating infectious disease which has already killed more than 5 million cave-dwelling bats in the Eastern territories of United States and adjacent part of Canada. The disease was named after the white patches on the nose, ears and wings of bats, caused by a psychrophilic fungus: Geomyces destructans. Th...
The records of Rhinolophus euryale at the northernmost margin of its range in southern
Slovakia and northern Hungary represent isolated spots of the species occurrence and together with
the parts of the species range in Romania and Serbia are associated with the Carpathian mountain
system. We revised distribution status of R. euryale in this mounta...
The authors screened samples, collected randomly from house-dwelling bats, for the presence of adenoviruses by PCR. Two novel adenoviruses were found in guano samples originating from the Aggtelek National Park and its surrounding area. Considering the results of previous studies, four new types of adenoviruses have been found in the representative...
strong>Abstract
We collected data on the reproduction of Nyctalus noctula in Hungary by mist-netting and monitoring bat boxes. The capture or observation of juveniles and lactating females were considered evidence of breeding. A total of 1413 N. noctula were mist-netted in four study areas, corresponding to 24 new breeding locations for Hungary. I...
153 The population size of the formerly abundant Corncrake has decreased in large parts of its Eurasian breeding range (Green et al. 1997; Keišs et al. 2007), mainly due to the intensification of agricultural practices (Green & Ray-ment 1996; Keišs 2005) and habitat loss (Collar et al. 1994). The northern and western European populations are especi...
As the illumination of buildings at night increases, light pollution and negative impacts on wildlife also increase. In order to assess the effect of direct lighting on house-dwelling bats, we examined colonies of Rhinolophus ferrumequinum, Myotis emarginatus and M. oxygnathus in illuminated and non-illuminated buildings found in close proximity to...
The essential structural elements of conservation management plans for terrestrial vertebrate species
Conservationists use species management plans to make conservation programmes more realistic, predictable and efficient. The conservation management plans are essential for the efficient and co-ordinated conservation activities, for that the plans...
SUMMARY In this study, we present preliminary data sets about population structure of five Greater Mouse-eared bat Myotis myotis colonies, located in Eastern Europe. With the use of standard molecular methods we estimated genetic variability, population relatedness, the effect of the Carpathians on gene flow, and tried to reconstruct postglacial co...
Projects
Projects (4)
After 14 years, Lloviu virus re-emerged in Europe in Hungary, 2016. Our related research activity includes the investigation of LLOV ecology, prevalence, examination of potential vector and reservoir species in nature and BSL-4 laboratory experiments (in vitro isolation procedures) as well.
Beyond the importance for filovirus virology, the conservation biological impact for European bat populations should be also considered in association with LLOV re-emergence. We recommend a European collaboration of conservation biologists and virologist to clarify the epizootiology of LLOV. Please follow the project for any updates.