Evolutionary ecology of reproductive system: sexual reproduction and sexual selection.
Overview of the research
Sexual reproduction is a ubiquitous phenomenon on the earth, although it requires to invest in male function (sons or pollen) that cannot contribute to population growth. If the natural selection had chosen the way of reproduction based solely on efficiency, all organisms would have converged on asexual reproduction. This paradox has been a long-lived mystery for evolutionary biologists. Another aspect of sexual reproduction is a source of diversity. Since Darwin’s era, some traits of males have been considered useless for survival but beneficial for mating: singing songs and wearing beautiful feathers to attract females, or armed by weapons to fight with conspecific males. The natural world is filled with a wide variety of such sexual traits but the mechanism sustaining these diversity is also a large mystery for ecologists. I’m challenging to solve these mysteries with theoretical and empirical approaches.
Life sciences, Ecology and environmental science, ecology
Papers
Predation-driven geographical isolation of broods in periodical cicadas
Diane Carmeliza N. Cuaresma; Maica Krizna A. Gavina; Jomar F. Rabajante; Jerrold M. Tubay; Takuya Okabe; Satoru Morita; Kazuya Kobayashi; Nobuaki Mizumoto; Hiromu Ito; Jin Yoshimura; Satoshi Kakishima; John R. Cooley
Scientific Reports, 07 Nov. 2024, Peer-reviewed
Long‐term data reveals increase in vehicle collisions of endangered birds in Hokkaido, Japan
Kazuya Kobayashi; Annegret Moto Naito‐Liederbach; Toshio Sadakuni; Yuta Morii
Conservation Science and Practice, Dec. 2024, Peer-reviewed, Lead author, Corresponding author
Possible influence of a selfish genetic element on the male-biased primary sex ratio in Neotermes sugioi: an inter-population cross-breeding experiment