RESEARCH GROUP LEADER: Dr. Sándor HORNOK DSc, professor
CONTACT: [Click to see email]
MEMBERS:
1) Dr. Attila SÁNDOR
2) Dr. Sándor SZEKERES
3) Dr. Gergő KEVE
4) Nóra TAKÁCS
5) Dr. Zsuzsa KALMÁR
6) Denis FEDOROV
7) Lili Veronika NÉMETH
RESEARCH TOPIC:
Due to climate change, blood-sucking arthropods and the so-called vector-borne pathogens pose a growing risk to animal and human health. Between our country and the Mediterranean region, there is no geographical barrier to the arrival of new blood-sucking parasites and vector-borne pathogens from the South through wild animals, and even – mainly – through birds and bats from any other direction. These may even become naturalized in the long run. The goal of our research group is to study the fauna of particularly significant blood-sucking arthropods (ticks, soft ticks, mites, fleas, dipterans, shield bugs) or the mapping of species and genetic variants that are new to science; tracking the increasing or decreasing domestic importance of these and vector-borne pathogens; and the establishment of an international genetic reference collection.
Link to the external website of the Research Group: https://www.exo-tick.com/
TOP PUBLICATIONS:
1) Reynolds C, Kontschán J, Takács N, Solymosi N, Sándor AD, Keve G, Hornok S. Shift in the seasonality of ixodid ticks after a warm winter in an urban habitat with notes on morphotypes of Ixodes ricinus and data in support of cryptic species within Ixodes frontalis. Exp Appl Acarol. 2022 Sep;88(1):127-138.
2) Szentiványi T, Hornok S, Kovács ÁB, Takács N, Gyuranecz M, Markotter W, Christe P, Glaizot O. Polyctenidae (Hemiptera: Cimicoidea) species in the Afrotropical region: Distribution, host specificity, and first insights to their molecular phylogeny. Ecol Evol. 2022 Oct 1;12(10):e9357.
3) Keve G, Sándor AD, Hornok S. Hard ticks (Acari: Ixodidae) associated with birds in Europe: Review of literature data. Front Vet Sci. 2022 Aug 25;9:928756.
4) Hornok S, Boldogh SA, Takács N, Sándor AD, Tuska-Szalay B. Zoonotic ecotype-I of Anaplasma phagocytophilum in sympatric wildcat, pine marten and red squirrel – Short communication. Acta Vet Hung. 2022 Aug 26.
5) Hornok S, Cutajar B, Takács N, Galea N, Attard D, Coleiro C, Galea R, Keve G, Sándor AD, Kontschán J. On the way between Africa and Europe: Molecular taxonomy of ticks collected from birds in Malta. Ticks Tick Borne Dis. 2022 Sep;13(5):102001.
GRANT PROJECTS:
Host-vector-pathogen coevolution strategies: role of pathogens in shaping bat and bat-parasite population dynamics