Professor
Shinshu University
Department of Biology, Faculty of Science
3-1-1 Asahi, Matsumoto Nagano 390-8621, Japan
Phone 0263-37-2563 Fax 0263-37-2560
itinot(at)shinshu-u.ac.jp
(1977-81) Kyoto University, B.S.
(1981-85) Kyoto University, Ph.D.
(1985-99) Assistant (85-93) and Associate (93-99) Professor, Kagawa University
(1994-95) Visiting Scholar, Harvard University, Museum of Comparative Zoology
(2000-) Associate (00-03) and Full (03-) Professor, Shinshu University
Researches in my lab focus on ecology and evolution of species interactions.
In Shinshu, where we have the most diverse fauna and flora in Japan,
1. We are investigating to what extent plants genetically and ecologically differentiate along altitude and how altitudinal changes in pollinator assemblages affect flower size evolution.
2. We are also investigating processes and mechanisms of the mutual counter adaptation between soldier aphids and their specialist predators, competition and coexistence of aphid-tending ants, and ecological mechanisms maintaining ant-aphid species specific interactions.
3. We are analyzing associated ecological and genetic differentiation of ants and their symbiotic arthropods (myrmecophiles) by sequencing genes of the insects and by swapping the species specific partners.
In Southeast Asia, as a model coevolutionary system, my students and I have been studying the three-way interaction among myrmecophytic plants (Macaranga spp.), their inhabitant ants (Crematogaster spp.) and trophobiont scale insects (Coccus spp.) in collaboration with researchers at Harvard and Kyoto. This tripartite association is highly species-specific, and the molecular phylogenies of the three partners radiate contemporaneously, suggesting their associated diversification since the mid-Miocene (～12 My) in Asian wet tropics.
