Prof. Hitoshi Araki1
1Hokkaido University, Sapporo, Japan
Hokkaido is the second largest main island in Japan. Hokkaido is located at the northernmost part of the country, and it hosts a wide variety of unique organisms in rivers, lakes, and forests. In this presentation, I will introduce our eDNA applications to fish and other organisms in Hokkaido which we addressed in the last several years. Regarding Shishamo smelt (Spirinchus lanceolatus), for example, we developed a species-specific eDNA detection system and applied it to several rivers in order to estimate their spatio-temporal variation in short-term migration from saltwater to freshwater. The same detection system was also applied to shore ecosystems, and we found that Shishamo juveniles use shores briefly after hatching in spring, and that they leave shores in early summer presumably owing to increased water temperature. I will discuss eDNA applications to terrestrial invasive animals too.
Biography:
Hitoshi Araki is a professor of animal ecology in Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido University, in Japan. He obtained his Ph.D. in Kyushu University in 2001, and worked in University of Chicago and Oregon State University in U.S. for 2001-2007 as a post-doctoral fellow. After working in Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology for 2008-2013 as a group leader, he became a professor in Hokkaido University. His research interest includes molecular ecology, population genetics and conservation biology.