•   August 23 2024

Media Coverage

Associate Professor Hiroaki Nakano assisted in the production of the article “From eggs to adults: the first successful breeding of the nudibranch sea slug Hypselodoris festiva”, which was published on the NHK Shizuoka website. It was also featured in the NHK News.

→ Web article

→ NHK news

•   July 21 2024

New Publication

PhD student Makiko Hayashi and Associate Professor Hiroaki Nakano have raised the nudibranch Hypselodoris festiva from eggs to adults in the laboratory. This is the first report on the rearing of a sea slug belonging to the family Chromodorididae from eggs to adults in the laboratory. The research was published online on July 21st, 2024 in Scientific Reports.

→ Staging of post-settlement growth in the nudibranch Hypselodoris festiva

→ TSUKUBA JOURNAL

•   June 7 2024

Open Fieldcourse

The Center will hold an open course for high school students based in Japan, "Introduction to Marine Biology," from Tuesday, July 30 to Friday, August 2, 2024. This course is designed to open the Center, a facility for education and research on the marine environment and its organisms, to high school students so that they can experience and learn about the marine environment and the diverse organisms that inhabit it from a variety of perspectives.

Those who wish to take the course are requested to send the documents below to the University of Tsukuba Shimoda Marine Research Center by post no later than Friday, June 28, 2024.

If there are too many applicants, the University will make a selection and notify you of the result.

→ Guidelines for "Introduction to Marine Biology" (attached PDF)

•   May 21 2024

Open Fieldcourse

Shimoda Marine Research Center, University of Tsukuba will hold an open field course "Laboratory and Field Studies in Marine and Mountain Biology" for undergraduate students from August 26th (Monday) to August 30th (Friday). If you wish to take the course, please send the required documents by the deadline, July 8th.

→ Where to apply and required documents

•   May 17 2024

Open Fieldcourse

The Shimoda Marine Research Center of the University of Tsukuba will hold an open fieldcourse "Marine Ecological Environmental Science" for graduate students from September 16th (Monday) to September 19th (Thursday). If you wish to take the course, please send the required documents to the Graduate School of Education, Life and Environmental Area Support Office, University of Tsukuba by the deadline (July 8th).

→ Required documents can be downloaded from here

•   March 29 2024

Public Outreach

The ICONA project will be joining OARS (Ocean Acidification Research for Sustainability) at the 2024 Ocean Decade Conference in Barcelona, Spain, 10-12 April 2024 - as part of the Ocean Decade Week.

•   March 27 2024

Media Coverage

NHK-E program, “生きもの・どアップ！超ミクロハンター〜命を支える「毛」の秘密〜” will be broadcast on TV this coming Friday morning. In the program, children from Shimoda city got the opportunity to observe marine organisms under a microscope that was equipped with an 8K camera. Professors Kazuo Inaba and Shunsuke Yaguchi from the Shimoda Marine Research Center will appear.

Date: 29th March 2024 (Fri) 09:00 - 09:30

→  Click here for more details

•   November 25 2023

Award

Joshua Heitzman, a graduate student in the Agostini laboratory, was awarded the Best Student Presentation Award at the 2023 (26th) Annual Meeting of The Japanese Coral Reef Society. His presentation was entitled 'Coral skeleton dissolution is accelerated by turf algal settlement under ocean acidification'.

→ Agostini Laboratory homepage

•   November 22 2023

Media Coverage

An announcer from NHK Shizuoka wrote an article about the disappearance of sea urchins and their food source, seaweed, from the seas of Izu. The article discusses the drastic reduction in the number of a Sea Urchin (Hemicentrotus pulcherrimus), which are used as research materials, over the past few years. It also covers the disappearance of large seaweeds like Kajime and Arame, which serve as their food, as one of the causes. Associate Professor Shunsuke Yaguchi and Assistant Professor Shigeki Wada have been interviewed on this matter.

→ The link is available here.

•   September 8 2023

Award

Prof. Kazuo Inaba, SMRC was awarded the Zoological Society of Japan Award 2023. The award ceremony and the award winners' lectures were held in the annual conference of the Zoological Society of Japan at Yamagata University.

→ Inaba Laboratory homepage

•   June 28 2023

Student Award

Makiko Hayashi, a graduate student in the Nakano laboratory, was awarded the Best Student Presentation Award at the 2023 Annual Meeting of The Malacological Society of Japan. Her presentation was entitled 'Growth and staging in juveniles of the nudibranch Hypselodoris festiva'.

→ Nakano Laboratory homepage

•   June 13 2023

New Publication

Sylvain Agostini, an assistant professor at the University of Tsukuba, has published multiple papers on the achievements of the Tara Pacific project. The project, initiated by the Tara Ocean Foundation and international partners, explores the biodiversity of coral reefs in the Pacific Ocean. Over 100 scientists from 8 countries and 23 research institutes participated in a 2.5-year exploration on the scientific vessel "Tara" (2016-2018), collecting samples from 30+ islands. Published papers in Springer Nature focus on coral microbiomes, viruses, and adaptive mechanisms using high-speed sequencing technology. Scientific Data papers by Fabien Lombard et al. and Caroline Belser et al. describe the project's sampling methods and data framework. These papers offer new insights into Pacific coral reef health and biodiversity.

→ Click here for information about the project

→ Click here for the Article Collection

•   May 8 2023

New Publication

In collaboration with the research group in Shizuoka Prefectural Research Institute of Fishery and Ocean, Izu Branch, Prof. Kazuo Inaba, SMRC developed an extender solution for short-term sperm storage in alfonsino Beryx splendens. These results were published online in NIPPON SUISAN GAKKAISHI (an official journal of the Japanese Society of Fisheries Science) on May 3rd, 2023.

→ “Development of an extender solution for short-term sperm storage to promote seed production in alfonsino Beryx splendens”

•   April 19 2023

New Publication

An international research group led by Professor James Davis Reimer of the University of the Ryukyus, in collaboration with Assistant Professors Sylvain Agostini, Ben Harvey and Shigeki Wada, alongside other members of the ICONA network, have synthesised information on the high abundance of zooxanthellate zoantharians (Palythoa and Zoanthus) at multiple natural analogues across the Pacific. These results were published online in Coral Reefs on April 19th, 2023.

→ High abundances of zooxanthellate zoantharians (Palythoa and Zoanthus) at multiple natural analogues: potential model anthozoans?

•   April 6 2023

New Publication

Assistant Professor Ben Harvey, in collaboration with an international working group, has highlighted the importance of crustose coralline algae in coral reef carbonate production, alongside recommendations for their inclusion in carbonate budgets under the ongoing climate crisis. These results were published online in Communications Earth &Environment on April 6th, 2023.

→ Crustose coralline algae can contribute more than corals to coral reef carbonate production