Scientific achievements

The most important scientific achievements of the Institute of Zoology are as follows:

• The genotoxic effect of environmental pollutants on insect and vertebrate indicator species has been studied;
• The scientific methods of biological monitoring have been developed and thus a contribution to the Global Environment Monitoring System is made;
• The karyotypes of more than 270 species of insects are described. New concepts on speciation and evolution of different insect taxa have been developed;
• The endo- and ectoparasites in many species of fish, wild and domestic birds and mammals are identified;
• Scientific approaches in biological pest control have been developed; Patent licenses for introduction of insect and rodent control methods are registered;
• A new strain of experimental mouse tumour, solid ascitic form, also as a cellular line cultivated in vitro, was obtained and maintained for more than
15 years;
• Through captive breeding at the Kalimok Experimental Biological Station and following reintroductions, a wild population of threatened Ruddy Shelduck has been restored in the region of Haskovo and the Black Sea coastal area;
• Scientists from the Institute have contributed to the preparation of the second updated edition of the Red Data Book of Bulgaria. Vol. II. Animals, and to the development of the European ecological network NATURA 2000 in Bulgaria.

The Institute of Zoology also took part in the development of a large number of international scientific projects and programmes. It had a long-time collaboration with prominent scientists, universities and academies from many countries. In the course of many years there was a useful cooperation in the field of biodiversity and ecology of animals with the Russian, Polish, Czech and the Hungarian Academies of Sciences, in the field of protoparasitology with the Czech and German Academies of Sciences, in the field of biochemical genetics and populational biology with the University of Montpellier (France), in the field of cytotaxonomy with the National Centre for Scientific Research (Italy) and the University of Helsinki (Finland), in the field of biological pest control with the American Forestry Service (Chicago) and the Institute for the Protection of Plants in Poznan (Poland), etc. For more than 30 years, the Institute has been the national coordinator and organiser of the investigations of the river Danube. It is a basic organisation of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), an interdisciplinary body of natural and social science expertise focused on global environmental issues of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS), of the Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB), of EMERGE (the European Mountain lake Ecosystems: Regionalisation, diaGnostic & socio-economic Evaluation) in the course of the Fifth Framework Programme of the European Union, a basic coordinator of the studies of animal diversity on the project for including Bulgarian habitats in the pan-European NATURA 2000 network of corridors for the protection of nature, etc.

The Institute has an intensive cooperation programme with American institutes and universities in the sphere of protozoology, parasitology and biosynthesis of sex pheromones. Projects in the field of population genetics are being developed, financed by international organisations (NATO, the Royal Society, England, etc.).

For more than 30 years, the Institute of Zoology has been a national leader of hydrobiological studies in the Danube River and an active member of the International Association for Danube Research (IAD). It is a national representative of the Scientific Committee on Problems of the Environment (SCOPE), and of the International Union of Biological Sciences (IUBS). It participates in the National Committee of the UNESCO's Man and the Biosphere Programme (MAB). The specialists in the Institute are members of international scientific societies, such as: the European Society for Evolutionary Biology (ESEB), the International Society of Arachnology (ISA), the European Society of Arachnology, the European Invertebrate Survey (EIS), the Russian Enthomological Society, the International Society of Protistologists, the International Heteropterist's Society, the South Eastern European Bird Migration Network (SEEN), the European Union for Bird Ringing (EURING), the European Ornithologists' Union (EOU), etc.