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

  Black Soldier Fly (BSF) is a kind of fly native to south America. Today, it distributes to not only America continent but also Asia, Oceania, Africa and Europe area. This fly is attractive because it consumes food waste and can be used as animal feed. It is said that one adult oviposits egg cluster including 400 to 800 eggs. Some researchers in Japan investigates how much 5 kinds of food waste, vegetable, fruit, carbohydrate such as rice, fish and meat can be consumed by BSF larvae. According to the study, vegetable, fruit and carbohydrate are suitable for food waste reduction by BSF larvae. They described that protein content of food affects the weight of larva consuming it. Actually, the result showed larvae consuming mix food containing 5 kinds of food were heavier than those consuming simple food. It is thought that it is because of low protein content in vegetable and fruit and high protein in fish and meat. アメリカミズアブは南アメリカ原産のハエの仲間です。今日では、アメリカ大陸だけでなく、アジア、オセアニア、アフリカ、ヨーロッパ地域にも分...

  I love sweet food when it contains palm sugar. Palm sugar is made from palm plants and is a common plant here in Indonesia. The farmers will take the sap from its plant and boiling until it thickens then put it in a shaper until it hardens. Mostly sweet food that contains palm sugar here is traditional food and all of it is delicious. I usually make it as a drink when the temperature gets colder. I will mix it with ginger and boil it as a hot good sweetness to warm your body. This sugar is considered healthier than cane sugar and a good choice as an alternative to taste sweet. My mother always buys this sugar in the traditional market and makes it mandatory supplies in the kitchen.

 Drones, which have been used in various studies in recent years and are attracting increasing attention, have finally begun to be used in my research. It helps my research to take pictures of the paddy fields from above and get a full picture of them. You can get a bird's-eye view of the paddy field, so you can see at a glance how the paddy fields are covered with snow. It is easy to operate once you get used to it, and the images from the camera are displayed in real-time at your operator device(Smart Phone), you can fly it just like playing a video game.  近年様々な研究で活用され、注目が高まっているドローンをついに私の調査でもその使用を開始しました。上空から水田を撮影し、その全貌を把握するのに一役買っています。俯瞰してみることができるので水田の積雪の様子が一目瞭然です。操作も慣れれば簡単で、手もとにリアルタイムでカメラからの映像が表示されるので、テレビゲーム感覚で飛ばすことができます。

 Good evening all. Job hunting started in earnest on March 1st today.I can now make reservations for entries and briefing sessions for each company.There are many companies, so it's hard to choose the company I want to work for.I'm also worried about whether it will work or not.However, I want to prepare well beforehand. I will be in the fourth grade in April, and my graduation research will start.I would like to make a plan and prepare for it.I want to learn how to take care of Black Soldier Fly. Thank you for the reading. 今日3月1日から就職活動が本格的にスタートしました。各企業へのエントリーや説明会の予約等ができるようになりました。沢山の企業があるので、その中から自分が働きたい企業を選ぶのは大変です。また、上手くいくかどうかの不安もあります。しかし、しっかりと準備をして臨みたいです。4月から4年生になり、卒業研究も始まります。こちらのほうも計画を立てて準備していきたいです。アメリカミズアブについて行うので世話の方法をしっかり覚えていきたいです。 writer: Mao

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 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!