Ladislav Roller - Attila Haris - Ábrahám Levente (szerk.): Sawflies of the Carpathian Basin, History and Current Research - Natura Somogyiensis 11. (Kaposvár, 2008)

Authors

Ladislav Roller In my childhood, I learnt a lot about insects during numerous nature walks in Bratislava environs with my grandfather and later with Mrs. Eva Repková, a leader of young naturalist's club. My deep-going interest in insects began during my study at the Secondary technical-agricultural school in Ivanka pri Dunaji. At that time I met Dr. Milan Kozánek, an entomologist of the Institute of Phytopatology and Entomology of Slovak Academy of Sciences (IPE SAS) in Ivanka pri Dunaji. I learnt from him how to collect, identify and study insects, in particular flies from families Sciomyzidae and Tabanidae. He supervised my first faunistic and systematic papers and my master thesis dealing with horseflies of the nature reserve Sur (SW Slovakia), their seasonal dynamics and novel identification method based on electrophoretic patterns of muscular proteins. After engineer graduation at the University of Agriculture in Nitra in 1992 I was employed at Department of Entomology of IPE SAS (currently united with Institute of Zoology of SAS - IZ SAS). I started to study sawflies, their seasonal flight activities and local sawfly fauna in various regions of Slovakia. In my PhD thesis, defended in 2000, I utilized Malaise traps to obtain abundant sawfly material resulting in more than 120 first recorded species in Slovakia. In June of 1997, I participated in the research-student expedition EURUS in Usuri region (Russian Far East) and later established collection of exotic sawflies in IZ SAS. During this project, I exchanged sawfly material with sawfly specialists Dr. David R. Smith (Washington) and Dr. Akihiko Shinohara (Tokyo). At that time I started collaboration with Attila Haris who has studied the IZ SAS sawfly collection from China, Laos and India. In 2000-2001, I obtained postdoctoral STA Fellowship at National Institute of Entomological and Sericultural Sciences in Tsukuba, Japan, where I studied selected neuropeptides in silkworm. Since my postodoctoral stay in Japan, I have worked in the field of molecular insect physiology in IZ SAS. I studied the bioactive peptides from the salivary glands of bloodsucking arthropods and with neuropetides involved in the regulation of insect ecdysis. Since 2001, I have also participated in faunistic investigation of Symphyta of several nature-protected areas in Slovakia. I had opportunity to meet and cooperate with most of European sawfly specialists in 2005 when I co-organized the 9th International Workshop on Symphyta in Slovakia. In 2007, I took chance to briefly introduce history of the sawfly research and to summarize the faunistic data on Symphyta of the Slovak part of Carpathian Basin in this book. List of the most important works of Ladislav Roller except those on Symphyta of the Carpathian Basin. ROLLER, L. 1995: Seasonal dynamics of sciomyzids (Sciomyzidae, Diptera) - Biológia, Bratislava 50(2): 171176. ROLLER, L. 1996: A new species of Sciomyza Fallén from central Europe (Diptera: Sciomyzidae) - Deutsche entomologische Zeitschrift 43(2): 245-250.