Bionomics and host plants of the invasive Cydia interscindana (Möschler, 1866) (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae), an emerging pest in the Carpathian Lowlands

Cydia interscindana (Möschler, 1866) has spread through several European countries in the past few years, becoming an invasive pest of ornamental trees. It was collected in Hungary for the first time in a pheromone trap set for Cydia pomonella (Linnaeus, 1758) in 2014. Here we discuss its recent distribution in Hungary based on intensive sampling between 2018 and 2020, which showed the dispersal of the pest by humans. Two formerly unknown host plants are also recorded. The damage caused by the larvae, the external morphology of the adult male, larva, pupa (described for the first time) and pupal exuviae are presented. We also analyse DNA barcodes, identifying this pest for the first time via DNA sequencing of immature stages. Introduction Cydia interscindana is native in the Mediterranean region, where it was described by Möschler in 1866 from Andalusia. It is distributed in Mediterranean countries including Portugal (Corley 2004), Spain (Férriz et al. 2006), France (Lévêque et al. 2017) and Italy (Minelli 1995). Later the species was recorded in the British Isles (Knill-Jones 2020), Belgium (De Prins 2016), Switzerland (Swisslepteam 2010), Slovakia (Pastorális et al. 2018) and Russia (Caucasus; Schurov et al. 2017). In Hungary, Cydia interscindana adults were caught by a sticky delta pheromone trap (CSALOMON RAG type) for Cydia pomonella (Linnaeus 1758) in 2014 during a study on swarming dynamics of the latter pest in Budapest. This provided the first record of the species in the Carpathian basin (Szabóky 2014; Takács and Szabóky 2015). In the Mediterranean region larvae feed on Juniperus oxycedrus (L.) (Miller 1990). In Belgium the larva was recorded on Juniperus spp. (Meert et al. 2019). J. oxycedrus is not native in Hungary, but Cupressus × leylandii A.B. Jacks. & Dallim 1926, Platycladus orientalis (L.) Franco 1949 and Chamaecyparis lawsoniana (A. Murray bis) Parl. 1864 are popular evergreens used as ornamental trees both in parks and gardens. In Hungary several pests of these plants have been recorded, all probably introduced with imported plants; in the literature, 11 Lepidoptera, nine Coleoptera and six Hemiptera species have been mentioned already (Csóka and Kovács 1999; Maráczi 2013; Bozsik et al. 2016; Schurov et al. 2017). However, until the end of the 2000s, only Scolytidae (Coleoptera) species caused serious damage (Bozsik and Szőcs 2017). In 2012, an outbreak of the formerly detected (Muskovits 2001) Lamprodila festiva (Linnaeus 1767) (Buprestidae) took place in Budapest (Németh 2012) causing serious damage on Platycladus orientalis and several ornamental gymnosperm species. This outbreak was certainly caused by introduced specimens, that had arrived with trees from the Mediterranean region where this beetle is a well-known pest (Merkl 2016), whose abundance in Hungary increases due to climatic change (Csóka et al. 2018). Based on the available data, in Hungary this beetle pest has also been blamed for all the damage caused on Cupressus, Platycladus and Chamaecyparis trees and management has been carried out only against them. In 2018, a larva of L. festiva, an unidentified caterpillar and a freshly emerged specimen of Cydia interscindana were collected simultaneously from a Leyland cypress in Székesfehérvár (Central Hungary). In that year, similar Lepidoptera larvae were found in three neighbouring villages: Velence, Sukoró and Pákozd. To identify the sampled caterpillar, DNA analysis was undertaken. Additionally, in 2019–2020 a country-wide investigation was carried out to map the distribution and abundance of C. interscindana and gather data on bionomics of this pest in the Carpathian basin.

New record of the viviparous lizard Zootoca vivipara (Jacquin, 1787) in Hungary

The lowland populations of the viviparous lizard Zootoca vivipara in the Carpathian Basin occur in cold, marshy relict habitats. In one of the largest wetlands in Hungary, Kis-Balaton, in 2016 its presence was confirmed by catching an individual with a small mammal live-trap. This new record is significant, since the nearest known sites of occurrence are at great distance and it is situated between the lowland viviparous populations of the north-northeast and the oviparous populations of the south (in Croatia).

A globális, az európai uniós vírusválság határpolitikai hatásai.

Összefoglaló. Az elmúlt mintegy másfél év alatt a COVID–19 vírus valójában több struktúrában megrengette a világot, az Európai Uniót és egyes országokat is. A világ államai rövid idő alatt bezárkóztak, az Európai Unió 30 napra lezárta külső határait, az egyes tagállamok pedig az uniós belső határokat is lezárták. Veszélybe került a schengeni rendszer. A Kárpát-medence államai az elsők között reagáltak a határok lezárásával. Az egyéni döntések kritikája erőteljesen megjelent az Európai Bizottság részéről. A globális, az európai és a szomszédállami folyamatok összefüggtek. A határok lezárása feltehetően hozzájárult a vírus terjedésének a korlátozásához. (Ausztrália példája ezt erősíti.) A határzárak a nemzetközi tranzitforgalomban, a határ menti területeken élők és az ingázók között okozták a legnagyobb bizonytalanságot, több esetben zűrzavart. Summary. According to the first ‘official announcement’ in December of 2019 the Covid-19 virus is reported to have emerged in China. The global spread of the virus was extremely fast. On 11 March 2020, the WHO declared Covid-19 to be a global pandemic. As of 31 March 2020 about 91% of the world population lived in countries with border and travel restrictions (border-closed world). The brief analysis reviews the main processes affecting EU and Member States borders, with a special regard to Hungary and its neighbours in the Carpathian Basin. On 17 March 2020, the EU closed its external borders for 30 days.to non-EU citizens. In parallel, a number of Member States decided to close their borders to both Schengen Zone members and third countries. As a response to border closures, the EU Commission and some states organized the repatriation of about 600,000 EU citizens. On 4 March, virus was officially reported to have been detected in Hungary. On 11 March the Hungarian Government declared a national state of emergency. On 15 March the first coronavirus-related death was announced. On 16 March the Government ordered the complete closure of Hungarian borders. After a border ‘traffic chaos’ along the Austrian-Hungarian border, the Hungarian Government – with collaborations with Romania – opened humanitarian corridors for foreign citizens. The possibilities of border crossings of citizens of seven neighbours of Hungary were formed not just by Hungary. In 2020 because of different changes (modifications, opening and closing) we could form at least three categories: open borders, partly open borders, closed borders. In the neighbouring countries (Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, Slovenia) the progression of the epidemic followed the same pattern. Over the past year and a half the virus crisis has actually shaken many structures of the globalized world, the European Union and many countries in the Carpathian Basin. The virus crises has disrupted intensive connections between Hungary and neighbouring countries. Neither Hungary nor its neighbours were able to insulate themselves from the epidemic waves. The border restrictions primarily affected the movements of persons. Because of ‘permanent uncertainty’ commuters were the losers of the crisis.

The Economic and Ecological Contexts of Urbanization in the Great Hungarian Plain during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries

There is abundant research on the history of urbanization in the Carpathian Basin with a special focus on the history of urbanization in the Great Hungarian Plain. Over the past years, there have been investigations concerning climate and historical ecology issues, as well as economic and social history, the results of which enable us to obtain an overview of the complex processes in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.It has been confirmed that prior to the Industrial Age (1850), climate change had made a profound impact on the conversion of the settlement network in the terrain and on the expansion of livestock farming. The climate in the seventeenth century seems to have been cooler and more humid, thus in the Great Hungarian Plain there were large areas covered with water. This significantly restricted the possibilities of crop cultivation as well as population growth. The warming-up period in the eighteenth century resulted in the shrinking of areas covered in water, the transition to flood plain farming and the extension of plough land crop cultivation, ultimately leading to population growth. There is evidence that by the turn of the eighteenth-nineteenth centuries, grain trade in the Carpathian Basin had been integrated into the Central European continental crop trading system, however, livestock farming was unique to the Great Hungarian Plain. From the mid-nineteenth century, due to the construction of the railway system in the Great Hungarian Plain, which revolutionized cargo transport, plus due to river regulations and drainage works, the economic structure of the area saw profound changes. In the meanwhile, the population and labor force supply were also increasing at a rapid rate. Marshlands and meadows were replaced by arable land and an increasingly growing crop production, which provided the foundations for the grain trade. Thus, new market centers emerged in the Great Hungarian Plain. Between 1828 and 1925, the number of market centers went up by 293, which represents an elevenfold rise. The growing density of the market center system significantly defined not only various aspects of urbanization, but also the general modernization of the Great Hungarian Plain.The purpose of my research is to analyze how changes in the climate influenced the settlement network, and the social and economic profile of the Great Hungarian Plain in the period concerned. Why was the favorable picture of a dynamically improving and modernizing Great Hungarian Plain at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries conceptualized by the public as an underdeveloped area characterized by a series of economic and social tensions? How do all these factors contribute to the revision of the emerging historiographic picture of the economic and social consequences of the Trianon Peace Treaty?

Edelmetallgegenstände als Quellen zu sozialen Prozessen der Spätawarenzeit (8.–9. Jahrhundert n. Chr.)

The present paper analyses the precious metal artefacts, scarcely known in the huge archaeological material of the “late Avar period” (eighth to early ninth centuries AD). Unlike in the previous era the majority of the gold and silver objects of the late Avar period are stray finds; in particular high-quality goldsmith's artefacts are absent in the grave assemblages of the eighth century. The significance of precious metal objects in grave assemblages reached its low ebb around the middle of the late Avar period; afterwards not only new object types appeared but a new grave-horizon emerged comprising precious metal objects. This paper, based on the quality and morphology of the objects, their archaeological contexts as well as their spatial distribution, draws a conclusion concerning the social and cultural changes in the early medieval Carpathian Basin.

A BRIDLE PLATE FROM THE TOWN OF BEKESSAMSON. NEW DATA ON THE RESEARCH OF ARCHAEOLOGICAL SITES DATING TO THE PRE-SCYTHIAN - EARLY SCYTHIAN AGE IN THE SOUTH OF THE CARPATHIAN BASIN

Работа посвящена анализу распространения одного из редких вариантов уздечных блях типа обнаруженной в окрестности г. Бекешшамшон в Юго-Восточной Венгрии. В ходе рассмотрения аналогий блях, найденных в памятниках Хорватии, Сербии и Северо-Западного Кавказа, подробно изучены сопровождающие находки и обстоятельства обнаружения. В результате можно прийти к выводу, что изучаемый бронзовый предмет датируется не ранее начала - первой половины VII в. до н. э. В ходе рассмотрения мелких деталей находки обращается внимание также на недостаточно разработанную типологию деталей уздечного набора и терминологию для описания их функционального назначения. This paper analyzes the distribution of one of the rare variants of horse bridle plates found in the vicinities of the town of Bekessamson in Southeastern Hungary. Considering the analogies to the plates discovered at the sites in Croatia, Serbia and the Northwestern Caucasus, accompanying finds and circumstances surrounding the finds were carefully examined. As a result, we come to the conclusion that the bronze object, studied by the authors cannot be dated earlier than the beginning - the first half of the 7 c. BC. While carefully examining small parts of the find, attention is paid to insufficiency of typology of the horse bridle details and terminology used for describing their functional purpose.

Take a seed! Revealing Neolithic landscape and agricultural development in the Carpathian Basin through multivariate statistics and environmental modelling

The Carpathian Basin represents the cradle of human agricultural development during the Neolithic period, when large parts were transformed into ‘cultural landscapes’ by first farmers from the Balkans. It is assumed that an Early Neolithic subsistence economy established along the hydrologic systems and on Chernozem soil patches, which developed from loess deposits. However, recent results from soil chemistry and geoarchaeological analyses raised the hypothesis that extensive Chernozem coverage developed from increased land-use activity and that Early Neolithic ‘cultural’ groups were not restricted to loess-covered surfaces but rather preferred hydromorphic soils that formed in the floodplains. This article performs multivariable statistics from large datasets of Neolithic sites in Hungary and allows tracing Early to Late Neolithic site preferences from digital environmental data. Quantitative analyses reveal a strong preference for hydromorphic soils, a significant avoidance of loess-covered areas, and no preference for Chernozem soils throughout the Early Neolithic followed by a strong transformation of site preferences during the Late Neolithic period. These results align with socio-cultural developments, large-scale mobility patterns, and land-use and surface transformation, which shaped the Carpathian Basin and paved the way for the agricultural revolution across Europe.