Agricultural Ecology LAB Yamagata Univ. 山形大学農業生態学分野

Blood parrot is a hybrid fish artificially crossbred in Taiwan as early as the 1980s. Currently, the Blood parrot is one of the most popular and high-value ornamental fish because of its bright body color. However, the fish cannot synthesize their own carotenoid color. As body color is the major factor that affects the market value of ornamental fish, enhancing it by supplementing pigments in diets is necessary. In aquacu lture, synthetically manufactured carotenoids are used as pigmentation of fishes.    Golden apple snail eggs are usually cemented outside water have been said to contain 72 nmol carotenoids per gram . Previous studies have reported that natural or synthetic carotenoids such as astaxanthin can be used as an additive to enhance fish body coloration and antioxidant activity . Furthermore, additions dietary of astaxanthin extracted fro m golden apple snail eggs has also shown efficiency for improved skin pigmentation in fancy carp ( Cyprinus carpio ) Thus, the use o

 The snow depth is more than 50 cm or 1m in my research field. Paddy field became snow plain. So that if someone visits the field it will be obvious by footprint. In this picture, someone is curious about my camera on the field. I guess it is a fox. Because a single footprint on the straight line is one of the features of a fox. Fox has a role as a predator in the ecosystem. So they also can be related to my study (Ecosystem of winter-flooded paddy). I have to check all of the organisms from microbe to apex predators. It is really excited me. 調査地では50㎝か1m以上積雪しています。夏場田んぼだった場所は見事な雪原になっています。そのため足跡がはっきりわかるため誰かが調査に入ればその痕跡が残ります。この写真では、何かがフィールドに仕掛けたカメラに近づいている事がわかります。おそらくこれはキツネです。キツネは直線状に1つづつ足跡を残す特徴があります。キツネは一般的には鳥や昆虫などを捕食する捕食者とされています。つまり、鳥に注目した私の調査にも関わってくる可能性が高いです。ミジンコなどの微生物から上位捕食者まで全ての生き物をチェックする必要がありそうです。

Today, I walked and passed the river closed with my apartment. In the river I saw some waterfowl there. It is very beautiful, isn't it???.  This is very interesting for me as I like to study about waterfowl nowadays. I checked some papers and articles showed the wetlands are disappearing three times faster than forest. Some scientist said 64% of wetlands disappeared since 1900’s. The population of waterfowl also decreased day by day. I started to think what is their role and how to conserve them? The answer is we just created their habitat and we know the most abundance of wetlands is rice fields. Rice fields is very good artificial habitat as provide a refugee and also food. Creating good environment will increase their population also. Now, I am thinking how many waterfowl species and population in my country? After I get back from here I will start to research it!

 ここ数か月は調子のよくなかったアメリカミズアブ飼育。調子の悪いミズアブ幼虫を毎日取り除く作業は本当に気が滅入るものでしたし、これからどうやって研究を続けていこうと真剣に考え抜きました。その努力のかいもあって、新年あけてから徐々に順調に回復し、それにしても本当にいろいろ対処を考えて迅速に実行しましたが、この頑張りは非常に楽しいものでしたね。おかげで今週は1ｋｇ以上の蛹を収穫し、3週間くらいで1万匹の成虫になることでしょう。大忙しだなこれは。 It was a very serious situation in ou BSF production in the past few months. It was so depressing to remove bad condition larvae every day from larval containers. It smelled no good, appeared very bad, but we did not know how we manage the situation for the better. BSF is one of the mainstream of our lab. So, if we lost it, it would be a serious problem in our study. Soon after the new year day, we have started many trials, and finally, it is now has been in recovery. In this week more than 1 kg of pupae we could harvest, and it is roughly becoming 10000 adults in the next few weeks.

 Black soldier fly is expected to solve food waste matter because it consumes various organic materials. Larvae can be sold as feed for animals after growing up because they contain rich nutrients such as protein. I found that they are sold for reptiles on the internet. Price is around 500 yen per 50g. Explanation of product says those larvae have high calcium consuming milk. Calcium seems to be important for reptiles as well as human. According to article, lack of calcium induces Metabolic Bone Disease (MBD), which often happen if human rear reptiles in wrong way. And balance between amount of calcium and phosphorus is important for absorbing calcium efficiently. Excess phosphorus inhibits absorbing of calcium. Therefore, if we consider the balance of calcium and phosphorus in bsf rearing, we can produce more valuable feed. 幼虫が種々の有機物を消費することから、食品廃棄物の処理への期待がされているアメリカミズアブ。廃棄物を処理した幼虫は、蛋白質などの栄養を多く含むことから動物の餌として販売できます。インターネットで調べると、爬虫類用の餌として販売されています。相場は 50g の幼虫で 500 円ほどです。ある製品の概要欄には、餌に牛乳を使用

If I have to tell which fruits I like the most, probably this one would be on my list. I called it “Jelly” fruit. This fruit has a plain flavor, but it’s fresh like you drink coconut water. The size is really handful to carry. I usually eat this with a spoon to scope the fruit. The locals called this one “Siwalan” fruit. This fruit can be found easily in East Java. So, it would be hard to find this fruit in Jakarta. I’m not sure if this one can be found as a canned food product but fresh products are always the best. You have to taste this fruit delight just in one bite!

  Estimates of how the different control variables for seven planetary boundaries have changed from 1950 to present. The green shaded polygon represents the safe operating space. Source: Steffen and al. 2015 Stratospheric ozone depletion The stratospheric ozone layer in the atmosphere filters out ultraviolet (UV) radiation from the sun. If this layer decreases, increasing amounts of UV radiation will reach ground level. This can cause a higher incidence of skin cancer in humans as well as damage to terrestrial and marine biological systems. The appearance of the Antarctic ozone hole was proof that increased concentrations of anthropogenic ozone-depleting chemical substances, interacting with polar stratospheric clouds, had passed a threshold and moved the Antarctic stratosphere into a new regime. Fortunately, because of the actions taken as a result of the Montreal Protocol, we appear to be on the path that will allow us to stay within this boundary.   Loss of biosphere integ