[Marine Biodiversity] Establishment of core technology for the preservation and regeneration of marine biodiversity and ecosystems

※ Affiliations and titles are as of the end of the research activity.

Strategic Objective

Creation of basic technologies for understanding marine ecology highly efficiently and forecasting marine life changes to conserve and regenerate the marine biodiversity required for sustainable usage of ocean resources

Research Supervisor

Isao Koike (Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo)

Outline

In this research area, we will pursue cutting-edge research and development of observation and monitoring techniques and prediction models in order to advance the understanding of marine biodiversity and ecosystems. Toward this end, our goal is to establish the core technology essential to the conservation and restoration of marine biodiversity and ecosystems.
In recognition of the current bottleneck in research on marine biodiversity and ecosystems, emphasis is placed on techniques for acquiring biological data, including environmental factors, as well as on prediction modeling. This research area is focused on (1) developing broad, continuous sensing and monitoring techniques for marine organisms and biological populations as well as related environmental factors, in order to improve the efficiency of species identification and biomass estimation and to develop cutting-edge techniques for accumulation and integration of basic biological and environmental data through analysis of ecological networks; and (2) developing novel models for understanding spatial and temporal changes in marine ecosystems and biodiversity and for making predictions about these biological systems.
To investigate items (1) and (2), researchers participating in each project must identify marine biological populations and/or biological processes which are the target of the proposed technique or model. In other words, field research and monitoring are required for validating the developed techniques and models; furthermore, close collaboration is necessary across a wide range of research disciplines. This research area, however, does not appreciate only observational investigations or monitoring of marine species and biological populations.
To overcome the traditional limitations on marine research, we strongly recommend collaborative research between researchers engaged in marine biological sciences (such as marine ecology and taxonomy) and researchers from a wide array of disciplines in engineering and life sciences. Through collaborative research with clearly defined targets, this research area can make significant contributions to policymaking for the conservation of marine environments, including the establishment of marine protected areas and sustainable use of marine resource that takes into account of negative effect on marine organism.

Research Area Advisors

・Ichiro AOKI
Professor emeritus , The University of Tokyo

・Michio KISHI
Professor Emeritus , Hokkaido Universit

・Ken KUROKAWA
Professor, Research Organized of Information and System, National Institute of Genetics

・Kaoru NAKATA
Director, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency, National Fisheries University

・Mutsumi NISHIDA
Vice-president , University of the Ryukyu

・Teruo FUJII
Professor , The University of Tokyo

・Hiroyuki MATSUDA
Professor , YOKOHAMA National University

・Ryo MIYAKE
Professor , The University of Tokyo

・Yoshifumi YASUOKA
Professor Emeritus, The University of Tokyo

・Tetsukazu YAHARA
Professor , Kyushu University

・Eitaro WADA
Professor emeritus , Kyoto University

Year Started : 2011

Development of remote species identification technologies for marine organisms

Research Director:
Tomonari Akamatsu(Chief Researcher, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency)

Synthesis of an autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) fleet for bio-sampling using 3D reconstructions of the seafloor

Research Director:
Tamaki Ura(Director and Professor, Kyushu Institute of Technology)

Development of marine ecosystem evaluation methods in the high throughput sequencing era

Research Director:
Kazuhiro Kogure(Professor, the University of Tokyo)

Evaluation of biodiversity and prediction of environmental changes by digital dna chip

Research Director:
Takashi Gojobori(Professor, Research Organized of Information and System, National Institute of Genetics)

Development of simulation techniques to nowcast the biodiversity of marine phytoplankton

Research Director:
Yasuhiro Yamanaka(Professor, Hokkaido University)

Year Started : 2012

Developing a new ecosystem assessment method applicable to data-limited situations by integrating marine ecology and machine learning

Research Director:
Hiroshi Okamura(Group Leader, Japan Fisheries Research and Education Agency)

Development of three dimensional mapping system of marine macrophyte beds using hyper- and multi-spectral remote sensing from air and seasurface

Research Director:
Teruhisa Komatsu (Professor, Department of Commrce, Yokohama College of Commerce)

Development of a new ecosystem model to represent the adaptive capacity of plankton communities in the North Pacific

Research Director:
Sherwood Lan Smith(Chief Scientist, Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology)

Construction of the environmental risk mathematical model by the meta-omics analyses of marine unculturable microbes based on single cell genome information

Research Director:
Haruko Takeyama (Professor, Waseda University)

Development of Free-Ocean Real-Time Experimental System to elucidate non-linear dynamics of marine community

Research Director:
Masahiro Nakaoka(Professor, Hokkaido University)

Novel technologies to evaluate multi-scale variations of pelagic marine communities and biodiversity under the influence of the Kuroshio and internal waves in coastal habitats

Research Director:
Hidekatsu Yamazaki(Professor, Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology)

Year Started : 2013

Continuous flow-through analyzer of small-sized seawater carbonate system to evaluate response of marine ecosystem against ocean acidification

Research Director:
Hajime Kayanne(Professor,University of Tokyo)

Application of environmental DNA for quantitative monitoring of fish community and ecosystem assessment

Research Director:
Michio KONDOH(Professor,Tohoku University)

Development of multi-isotope tracer techniques for evaluating functions of coastal ecosystem

Research Director:
Ichiro Tayasu(Associate Professor,Kyoto University)

Development of a new technique to evaluate the dynamics of marine ecosystems and material cycling using long lived nuclides

Research Director:
Toshi NAGATA(Professor,The University of Tokyo)

Construction of advanced biologging system to implement high data-recovery rate – a challenging study to clarify the dynamics of fish population and community-

Research Director:
Kazushi Miyashita(Professor,University of Hokkaido)

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