Zsófia Varga-Szilay, Author at Zsófia Varga-Szilay's Research Site

Data digging from photographs of moths using deep-learning-based object detection

by Zsófia Varga-SzilayResearch projects 26/09/202206/11/2022Comments are Disabled

Background Biodiversity decline disproportionally affects hyperdiverse, yet low and middle-income, tropical regions, and Lepidoptera are among the most impacted taxa. Whereas monitoring in these countries is essential, only implementing low-cost solutions can guarantee success. The recent automatic image analysing methods allow for fast and low-cost solutions in monitoring biodiversity. Lepidoptera monitoring is relatively simple and …

Pollinator-friendly gardening or ecological traps: questionnaire-based studies on garden pesticide use

by Zsófia Varga-SzilayResearch projects 26/09/202203/11/2023Comments are Disabled

Background Pesticides are one of the most important anthropogenic-related stressors. In times of global pollinator decline, the role of integrated farming and that of urban gardens in supporting wild pollinators is becoming increasingly important. The gardens could be hotspots of biodiversity and could give refuge for pollinators in urban areas. The indicators of these gardens’ …

Automated pollinator identification, community and interaction monitoring from video captures

by Zsófia Varga-SzilayResearch projects 26/09/202206/11/2022Comments are Disabled

Background In order to understand the processes behind the pollinator declines, besides monitoring species occurrences, we also have to focus on monitoring interactions. In addition to traditional trapping and observation methods, we should develop fast, reliable, and cheap automated methods which are capable of monitoring both species occurrences and interactions. Using cutting-edge tools in ecology, …

Environmental impacts on bumblebees’ behaviour

by Zsófia Varga-SzilayResearch projects 25/09/202224/06/2023Comments are Disabled

Background In recent decades, the populations of pollinators have been declining worldwide. This is increased by anthropogenic background factors such as agrochemical pollution, degradation of natural habitats, noise, dust and heavy metal loads from roads. Anthropogenic noise is a type of pollution that has so far been little studied, but it has been proven to …

The Mind of a Bee

by Zsófia Varga-SzilayBooks 14/09/202202/11/2022Comments are Disabled

📚 A snippet from a book about the astonishing cognitive abilities of bee: “We humans have our senses of sight, hearing, smell, and taste neatly packaged into completely different sense organs (and we can’t additionally taste with our feet). This is clearly different in bees, whose antennae are as multifunctional as a Swiss Army knife! …