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

History of the Symphyta research in the Carpathian Basin

Jana Jendeková (1960 Bratislava -) focused on the Symphyta fauna of southwestern Slovakia. In her master thesis, she reported 93 species from the Devinska Kobyla national nature reserve (JENDEKOVÁ 1984). She partly elaborated the Symphyta collection of the Slovak National Museum in Bratislava recording 103 species from SW Slovakia (JENDEKOVÁ 1988). Sawfly research in Slovakia Pavel Hrubik (1941 Senné (near Vel'lty Krtis) - , professor at the Agricultural University in Nitra) published records of several Symphyta species associated with urban or park vegetation (HRUBÍK 1988; JUHÁSOVÁ and HRUBÍK 1984) and oaks (HRUBÍK et al. 1995). Jozef Lukas (Trencin, 1949 - , entomologist at Comenius University in Bratislava) (Fig. 23) studied the Symphyta fauna of Slovakia reporting firstly the occurrence of 12 sawfly species (LUKÁS 1991, 1992b, ROLLER and LUKÁS 1999). He also studied the sawflies of the Devinska Kobyla national nature reserve (SW Slovakia) listing 196 species, 12 of them were first records for Slovakia again (LUKAS 1992a). So, Devinska Kobyla became the one of the best researched small scale locality in the Carpathian Basin. Furhtermore, Roller recently listed 250 species from this place either (ROLLER 2005). In 1998, Lukas and Jana Schlarmannová recorded 16 Symphyta species from Biele Karpaty Mts, West Slovakia (LUKÁS and SCHLARMANNOVÁ 1998). Zdenék Cerny (Czech entomologist from Mratin near Prague) published a paper on the Hymenoptera of Ponitrie protected landscape area recording 22 Symphyta species (CERNY 1993). Pavol Berec (1958 Trencin - , entomologist) discussed the distribution of Rhadinoceraea reitteri Knw. in Slovakia (BEREC 1997). Julius Jamnicky (1924 Párnica - , forestry zoologist) studied the sawflies associated with Pinus mugo and Pinus cembra in the High Tatras Mts. providing data on their distribution (JAMNICKY 1963, 1988, 1990). Miroslav Úradník (1970 Banská Stiavnica - , entomologist) and Ján Kulfan (1957 Myjava - entomologist at the Institute of Forest Ecology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Zvolen) remarkably contributed to the knowledge of sawflies associated with Norway spruce (ÚRADNÍK and KULFAN 2002, ÚRADNÍK 2006). With the coauthorship of Ladislav Roller, Úradník reported several first records of sawfly species collected in spruce forests of Central and Northern Slovakia (ÚRADNÍK and ROLLER 2000, 2002). Recently Veli Vikberg (Turenki, Finland) reviewed Pontania {Eupontania) species associated with northern and alpine Salix species. Based on the material collected by Benes in Belanské Tatty Mts., he described Eupontania alpinae reared from galls on Salix alpina (VIKBERG 2003). Miroslav Kulfan (1953 Myjava -, entomologist at the Comenius University in Bratislava) investigated the mining Pseudodinera species and recorded P. enslini Hering and P. mentiens Ths. in Slovakia for the first time (KULFAN 2004, 2005). Ladislav Roller (1969 Bratislava -. entomologist at the Institute of Zoology of Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava). I investigated ecology and faunistics of Symphyta in various sites of the West and Central Slovakia using Malaise traps during my PhD study. Up to this day, I contributed to the knowledge of Slovak Symphyta fauna by more than 120 first records. In 1999, I published the checklist of Symphyta of Slovakia in which 565 species were recorded. The number of recorded species has almost doubled since the time of publication of the Czechoslovak sawfly-checklist (BENES 1989). I participated in the investigation of several nature-protected areas in Slovakia like National