The members of four laboratories research about development, evolution, and ecosystem.
Cell is a basic unit of "living". Based on this standpoint, we try to unveil the tale of living things such as butterflies, spiders, fig wasps and frogs from the perspectives of development, evolution, and ecosystem. We have a lot of such interesting topics as: the developments of spiders and frogs from an egg (a cell), insects' diversity and insect-plant coevolution, and the selection of host plants by butterflies.
Evolution of Insect host selection mechanism Katsuhisa OZAKI
Larvae of butterflies feed special host plants. We aim to understand of biological interaction between insects and plants by identification of mechanism for host recognition in chemosensory hair on fore-tarsi.
Phylogeny and evolution Zhi-Hui SU
Studying on molecular phylogeny and evolution of arthropods, especially insects, and mutualism and co-evolution between figs and fig wasps.
Evolutionary Cell and Developmental Biology Hiroki ODA
To understand the deep origins of animal diversity, we compare mechanisms of development and cell-cell adhesion mainly using Drosophila and the spider Parasteatoda tepidariorum.
Vertebrate morphogenesis Chikara HASHIMOTO
Fundamental structure of vertebrate species is found in pharyngulae on the course of early development. To know how this structure is established, we study morphogenesis of amphibians in terms of ontogeny and phylogeny.
