Jeremy Tibor

* Levoca, 31 January 1917 – 23 September 2014 † entomologist, agrozoologist, internationally renowned representative of plant protection entomology, member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences (1985) ; ; After the change of empire in 1918, his parents first moved to Zalaegerszeg and then to Budapest. He graduated from the Toldy Ferenc Secondary School in 1935, and completed his studies at the Pázmány Péter University of Budapest in 1940, but only obtained his teaching certificate in natural history and chemistry in 1942. He was greatly influenced by the zoologist Endre Dudich (Nagysalló), and at his encouragement he delved into zoology. From 1940 he worked as a wine chemist at the Central Experimental Station of Viticulture and Winemaking. He served as an artillery officer in World War II between 1942 and 1945, then in March 1945 he was taken prisoner by the Russians, and was only able to return home in July 1947, when he became a doctor of zoology. He worked at his previous job until 1949, then worked at the zoology department of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences' Plant Protection Research Institute until his retirement in 1978. He was the director of the institute between 1969 and 1978. His research focused on the coenological, ecological and ethological study of insect pests of cultivated plants, as a result of which he laid the foundations of modern research on agroecosystems and biological plant protection. ; He researched the possibilities of protection against the most dangerous plant pests: the potato beetle, the American whitefly and the apple moth. He thoroughly investigated the functioning of living communities (biocenoses) and drew a parallel between their energy flow and balance and the entropy of inorganic material systems. He rejected the theory of coevolution, i.e. the joint phylogeny of plants and herbivorous (phytophagous) insects, and disputed the concept of biological equilibrium and the power of biotic factors on evolution. Instead, he developed the thesis of sequential evolution, according to which loose biotic relationships and asymmetry play the main role in the unbalanced phylogeny of these two groups of organisms. His entomological work, carried out using novel methods, is also of fundamental importance for the basic science of entomology. His studies demonstrated the learning ability of herbivorous insects and pointed out that the specialization of insects on food plants is not determined by feeding-inducing (phagostimulant) plant substances – as previously thought – but rather by feeding-inhibiting (phagoinhibitory) substances found in certain plants, specific to each plant species, to which certain insect species have adapted and can recognize them with their chemoreceptors. He also studied in depth the biology of the potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata), the American white weevil (Hyphantria cunea), and the parasitic tachinidae that reduce the populations of the latter. He studied the diapause of the apple moth (Cydia pomonella), i.e. the periodic slowing down or stopping of individual development due to changes in environmental conditions, by observing a population of apple moth larvae planted on the north or south side of an apple tree. ; ; His main works: ; The potato beetle (Leptinotarsa decemlineata Say) (with Gyula Sáringer, 1955, ; Biological control against plant pests, 1967, ; The past, present and future of biological control, 1984, ; Thoughts on coevolution: Academic chair collection, 1987, ; Handbook of plant protection zoology I–VI. (ed.), 1988–1996, ; Population dynamics of animals (with Ferenc Kozár and Ferenc Samu), 1992.