Research Interests

Anna’s PhD work was based on complementary experiments conducted in nature and aviaries explaining mechanisms and ecological importance of interactions in tri-trophic systems. She executed manipulative experiments by inducing chemical defences of various plant species using plant hormone Methyl jasmonate (MeJA) or lepidopteran larvae in the Czech Republic, Spain, and Papua New Guinea. She proved that insectivorous birds use, beside the vision, also olfactory sense in their foraging behaviour.

Anna loves to collaborate. Her research topic is complementary to the European Research Council (ERC) funded BABE Project led by her formal supervisor Dr. Katerina Sam in which she is involved as a collaborator responsible for fieldwork, data analysis and co-authoring publications. During her master’s studies, she worked as a data collection manager of LifeWebs Project assessing the way network structure changes in relation to the environment for natural and human-created gradients (PI: Tom Fayle). She also participated in the ‘Oak bodyguard’ Citizen Science Project, exploring how do oaks protect themselves from insects and how the role of herbivores and their predators differ across Europe (PI: Bastien Castagneyrol). Last year, she became the coordinator of audio recording in LIFEPLAN Global Project. This ERC project aims to establish the current state of biodiversity across the globe and to use our insights for generating accurate predictions of its future state under future scenarios (PI: Tomas Roslin).

Anna defended her PhD thesis in August 2022. Currently, she is aiming to evaluate the trade-off between different plant defences, their impact on insect communities and predation on large-scale gradients.

As seen above, Anna is always open to collaborations on a variety of topics, please get in touch with her anna.mrazova.eco@gmail.com. She can be followed on Twitter and ResearchGate.

Current Research

• Tri-trophic interactions
• Bird olfactory
• Predation
• Behavioural ecology

Curriculum vitae

Publications

• Romero, G., Gonçalves-Souza, T., Roslin, T., Novotny, V., …, Mrazova, A., … & Koricheva, J. (2022). Climate variability and aridity modulate the role of leaf shelters for arthropods: a global experiment. Global Change Biology, doi: 10.1111/gcb.16150.
• Valdés-Correcher, E., Popova, A., Galmán, A, Prinzing A., … Mrazova, A., …, & Castagneyrol, B. (2022). Herbivory on the pedunculate oak along urbanization range in Europe: effects of local forest cover and insect feeding guild. Ecology and Evolution, 10.1002/ece3.8709.
• Pereira, C., Novais, S., Barbosa, M., Negreiros, D., …, Mrazova, A., … & Cornelissen, T. (2022). Subtle structures with not-so-subtle functions: a dataset of arthropod constructs and their host plants. Ecology, e3639.
• Amo, L., Mrazova, A., Saavedra, I. & Sam, K. (2022). Exogenous Application of Methyl Jasmonate Increases Emissions of Volatile Organic Compounds in Pyrenean Oak Trees, Quercus pyrenaica. Biology, 11(1), 84.
• Valdés-Correcher, E., Moreira, X., Augusto, L., Barbaro, …, Mrazova, A., … & Dobrosavljević, J. (2021). Search for top-down and bottom-up drivers of latitudinal trends in insect herbivory in oak trees in Europe. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 30 (3), 6 51-665.
• Sam, K., Koane, B., Sam, L., Mrazova, A., Segar, S., … & Novotny, V. (2020). Insect herbivory and herbivores of Ficus species along a rain forest elevational gradient in Papua New Guinea. Biotropica, 52(2), 263-276.
• Castagneyrol, B., Valdés-Correcher, E., Bourdin, A., Barbaro, L., … Mrazova, A., … & Eötvös, C. B. (2020). Can School Children Support Ecological Research? Lessons from the Oak Bodyguard Citizen Science Project. Citizen Science: Theory and Practice, 5(1).
• Mrazova, A., Sam, K., & Amo, L. (2019). What do we know about birds’ use of plant volatile cues in tritrophic interactions? Current opinion in insect science, 32, 132-136.
• Mrazova, A., & Sam, K. (2019). Exogenous application of methyl jasmonate to Ficus hahliana attracts predators of insects along an altitudinal gradient in Papua New Guinea. C, 35(4), 157-164.
• Mrazova, A., & Sam, K. (2018). Application of methyl jasmonate to grey willow (Salix cinerea) attracts insectivorous birds in nature. Arthropod-Plant Interactions, 12(1), 1-8.
• Fayle, T. M., Sam, K., Humlova, A., Cagnolo, L., & Novotny, V. (2016). The LifeWebs project: A call for data describing plant-herbivore interaction networks. Frontiers of Biogeography, 8(4).

Conference talks

• Mrazova, A., Houska Tahadlová, M., Amo, L., Saavedra, I., Řehová, V., Jorge, L. R., Sam K., (2022). Interactions between plants, herbivorous insects, and predators: mechanisms and ecological importance. The 8th Conference of the Czech Ecological Society (ČSPE), Brno. Oral presentation.
• Mrazova, A. (2021). Might birds green an extensive agriculture? Over the Horizon and for Mutual Acquaintance, Conference of PhD students, University of South Bohemia. Oral presentation.
• Mrazova, A., Sam K. (2017). The friendship between predators and plants alias importance of predatory vertebrates for plant performance. Ecology across borders, Ghent. Poster presentation.
• Humlová A., Sam K. (2017). Vycítí hmyzožraví ptáci rostliny volající o pomoc? Zoological days, Brno. Oral presentation.
• Humlová A., Bonny K., Markis P., Sam K. (2016). Tropical birds can smell trees calling for help along an elevational gradient: An experiment with chemically and manually induced herbivory. Conference of Society for Tropical Ecology. Oral presentation.