| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,420,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,020,000)
Fiscal Year 2015: ¥1,300,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000、Indirect Cost: ¥300,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,560,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥360,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
This study aims to reveal the adaptation for herbivory by fish and its diversification that enables multiple herbivorous-fishes to coexist. We surveyed five species of damselfishes on coral reefs and found that farming by damselfish varies from extensive mode to intensive mode, and intensive farmer defends their smaller territory thoroughly, whereas extensive damselfishes have larger territories paying less cost to defend territories per area.
In Lake Tanganyika, 16 species of the herbivorous cichlids coexist on a rocky shore. We demonstrated that these cichlids had first specialized their feeding morphs and have been diversified into several niches such as grazer, browser, sucker. Then, species in the same ecomorphs have diversified their functional traits around snout, jaws and intestine that closely related to feeding. This diversification enables ecologically similar species within the ecomorphs to specialize on different microhabitats and segregate their niches in finer scale.
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