■ Introduction to Research〓 Research Area : Evolutionary Ecology

Study on evolutionary ecology using insects
All of organisms including agricultural products of material are
product of evolution. All of them are influenced from environmental
and ecological factors. Therefore, understanding of evolutionary
ecological mechanisms is important to consider all living thing. We
are grappling with researches in the mechanism of evolutionary
ecology using mainly insect species. We focus on insect behaviors
including anti-predator behavior, courtship and mating systems,
biological interactions of insect species. Concretely, there are specialized research theme concerning mating system, sexual selection, sperm competition, insect immobility, dispersal tactics, interaction between environments and insect behaviors, using insects.

Research on insect behaviors for applied entomologicaltechniques
In addition to the basic researches in evolutionary
ecology, we can apply these results to output concerning applied entomology and insect pest control.
Understanding insect behavior connect to some
applied entomological techniques; for example,
monitoring and detecting the beetles using lights
and/or pheromone in a laboratory and a storehouse,
attraction methods using ultra violet l or blue lights
and lure, or breeding of flightless beetles. In addition
to these researches, we concern some relationships
between native and invasion insects from the world
including common pill bug, sweet potato weevils,
fruit flies, and broad-horned flour beetles.

〓 Prof.
MIYATAKE Takahisa〓 Research Area : Bioproduction Systems Engineering

Optimization of Sawdust-Based Shiitake Growth with
Cultivation Facility Environments
Shiitake is one of the most popular mushroom in Japan. Dried
one is also famous as a soup stock. The history of cultivation
started more than 100 years ago, logs had been used for fungi
culture. Now a days, logs are replaced with sawdust and they
started to culture in a environmental controlled facility which
may called as a plant factory. Temperature is the most importantfactor, fungi is damaged with high temperature, but not optimized yet. So that we started to optimize environmental factors
for better outputs, not only yield but also quality. Among others,
lighting has a possibility for controlling qualities, such as a size,
shape or color, as shown in right pictures.

Influence of Environmental Conditions on the Chrysanthemum
Leaf Yellow Spot

〓 Assoc. Prof.
NAMBA Kazuhiko

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Chrysanthemum is one of the most popular flowers in Japan. It is
used in various ways, for a funeral, flower arrangement and so on.
In addition there is a demand all year round, so it's cultured in anenvironmental controlled green house. In recent years, yellow spots
appear on the leaf in many species. In chrysanthemums, the stateof a leaf involves commercial values, not only flower quality. The
mechanism how it occurs isn’t still found out clearly and techniques
to prevent it occurring aren’t established. We focused to the environmental conditions as a case. For an objective measurement, a portable image taking device was made, shown in a left picture, and image
processing has been adopted.