Research Theme

We study dynamics of marine populations and communities in coastal ecosystems, mainly focusing on seagrass meadows and rocky interitidal communities. We are specially interested in how diverse marine communities contribute to functioning of coastal ecosystems.

Ecology of Seagrass Ecosystem (Team "UMIKUSA")

Seagrass meadows are among the most productive components of coastal ecosystems, hosting wide variety of animals and plants. Multispecific seagrass meadows are prominent characters of seagrass meadows in temperate and tropical areas in Japan and Asia. We carry out comparative and experimental studies of seagrass meadows focuing on various aspects of seagrass ecology, e.g., population and community dynamics, and genetic/species/landscape diversity by interdiciplinary approaches incorporating field census, molecular ecology, remote sensisng and GIS techniques.

1. Species coexistence patterns, and prodictivity of seagrasses in Japan and Asia
2. Community structure and dynamics of seagrass ecosystems, especially focusing on plant-animal interactions
3. Biodiversity and ecosystem functioning of seagrass beds
4. Long-term and large-scale monitoring of seagrass meadows toward their effective management

Selected Publications

Ecology of Rocky Intertidal Ecosystem (Team "ISO")

Being an ideal model system for community ecolgy, studies on rocky intertidal community have been contributing to new findings of ideas and theories of community ecology that are applicable to various ecosystems in general. We have been carrying out an extensive field study along the whole Pacific coast of Japan to understand scale-dependency in community organization, that has been regarded as last fronteer of ecology.

Main research project

Scale dependency in biodiversity patterns and their regulating mechanisms: A large scale comparative study in rocky intertidal community
- Project by M. Nakaoka, T. Noda (Hokkaido University), T. Yamamoto (Kagoshima University) and M. Hori (Fisheries Research Agency, Japan)
- Research sites: 6 regions along the Pacific Coast of Japan > 5 rocky shores within each region > 5 permanent research plots within each shore
Selected Publications