Marine Biodiversity
Marine environments are populated by various animals, which represent almost all phyla and range from the simplest to the most complex body plan. Our laboratory is located in the Mutsu bay area in the north of Japan, which is known to have one of the richest varieties of marine life in the Tohoku area. Benefitting from such a location, we study a variety of local marine animals. We are interested in a broad range of topics in marine biodiversity, including molecular and cellular mechanisms and evolutionary aspects of early embryonic development, as well as ecological distribution in relation to environmental factors and interactions such as symbiosis and predator-prey interactions.