Zsolt Czekes

• PhD
• Research Assistant at Babeș-Bolyai University

Nanosized materials are currently applied nearly everywhere and nanotechnology is part of our everyday life. To solve important issues such as clean air, water and energy semiconductive nanoparticles showed the...

Investigations regarding AgBr-based photocatalysts came to the center of attention due to their high photosensitivity. The present research focuses on the systematic investigation regarding the effect of different alkali metal cation radii and surfactants/capping agents applied during the synthesis of silver-halides. Their morpho-structural and opt...

Territorial strategy in animals is characterized by the monopoly of resources inside a protected area, the territory. The presence of territorial species considerably alters the behavior of co-occurring submissives, as it is known in several submissive ant species living on the territories of red wood ants in temperate regions. On the other hand, a...

The range of hosts exploited by a parasite is determined by several factors, including host availability, infectivity and exploitability. Each of these can be the target of natural selection on both host and parasite, which will determine the local outcome of interactions, and potentially lead to coevolution. However, geographical variation in host...

New data concerning the distribution, morphology, intraspecific variability and ecology of Otiorhynchus (Elechranus) remotegranulatus Stierlin, 1891 are presented. We describe for the first time the aedeagus of the species. The distribution data show that the species is endemic to the western Carpathians, Romania. This extremely small distribution...

Conservation programmes are often based on snapshot information on animal abundance. However, land fragments with high numbers of individuals do not necessarily represent their natal areas, which are crucial for species persistence. A classic example of the above principle are source-sink systems, in which excess individuals emigrate from source ar...

When selecting specific host plants, caterpillars of many lycaenid butterflies, such as the protected Pseudophilotes bavius hungarica, are known to engage in various interactions with ants, which help them survive. Although P. bavius is a protected species, data about its host plant selection is very scarce, and little information is available on i...

Competition is one of the basic mechanisms shaping ant assemblages. Dominant territorial species are known to restrictively influence the traits of subordinates in various ways. However, there could be differences in the effects of dominants due to differences in their colony structure, lifestyle and also behaviour. We tested this hypothesis in nat...

Population dynamics studies in insects mostly focus on a specific life stage of a species and seldom consider different stages. Here, we studied the population demography of a protected Maculinea alcon ‘cruciata’ population and the factors that could influence the distribution of eggs. The results of the mark-recapture survey showed a relatively sh...

The ant species Myrmica scabrinodis plays a markedly important ecological role through much of the humid grasslands of Eurasia. It hosts a species-rich community of pathogens and parasites, including Rickia wasmannii, an enigmatic member of entomoparasitic laboulbenialean fungi. This study provides a descriptive ecology of R. wasmannii by character...

1. The Alcon Blue Maculinea alcon and the Mountain Alcon Blue Maculinea ‘rebeli’ are obligate ant-parasitic butterflies with no distinct morphological and genetic differences but clear ecological separation. 2. The two butterflies generally lay their eggs on distinct host plant species: M. alcon on Gentiana pneumonanthe and M. ‘rebeli’ on Gentiana...

Myrmecological studies have been carried out in Romania since the last century, however, these lacked regularity. Due to their sporadic nature the checklist of the Romanian ant fauna cannot be considered completed. There are several regions that were understudied or not studied at all, such as the counties at the western border of Romania (Arad, Bi...

Several species of fungi exploit ants. Most of them are known from the tropics, where they may exhibit spectacular morphologies, and a handful of species are known to occur in Europe. Available data on their geographic range, host specificity and effect on the host is scarce and require acquisition. In addition, there is a significant geographic bi...

Polydomy is a rather general trait in ants. In Europe, mainly territorial mound building Formica species apply this strategy in the native fauna. Here we present the largest European polydomous system for Formica exsecta Nyl. which consists of 3,347 nests dispersed over ca. 22 ha in Transylvania, Romania. The whole population includes six additiona...

The mound building narrow-headed ant Formica exsecta builds guarding out-stations, usually at the root of the aphid-housing plants. Colonies of this species can develop into huge polydomous systems, so-called supercolonies, made up of several hundred of related nests and outstations. Although the existence of these guarding structures is well-known...

Genus Myrmica is one of the largest ant genera in Romania with 18 species distributed across the entire country. In the frame of this study we present the distribution data of all Romanian Myrmica species: M. bergi, M. constricta, M. gallienii, M. hellenica, M. lobicornis, M. lonae, M. karavajevi, M. rubra, M. ruginodis, M. rugulosa, M. sabuleti, M...

The development of polydomous systems, where colonies are made up of multiple related nests, is a rather general trait in ants (Debout et al. 2007), and it is also known in the native, mound building territorial ant species Formica exsecta, as well (e.g. Pisarski 1982, Erős et al. 2009). The largest European F. exsecta polydomous system can be foun...

Social animals like ants, although seemingly well-armed against parasites because of the protective nature of the social system, are nevertheless exposed to several parasitic organisms, among them fungi of the order Laboulbeniales (Ascomycetes). Rickia wasmannii is one such ectoparasitic fungus that lives on different species of the ant genus Myrmi...

Food-for-protection mutualistic interactions are quite common between ants and other insects. Such myrmecophilous relationships are primarily charac-teristic of homopterans, e.g., aphids. Ants usually profit from these relation-ships by enriching their diet with the carbohydrate-rich byproducts of these insects, whereas aphids benefit mainly from p...