Preventing extinction by evaluation of adaptive traits

2017 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 16K14804
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Ecology/Environment
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Chiba Satoshi 東北大学, 東北アジア研究センター, 教授 (10236812)
• Research Collaborator: UCHIDA Shota ; SHINOBE Shotaro ; AKIYAMA Kao
• Project Period (FY): 2016-04-01 – 2018-03-31
• Keywords: 保全 / 外来種 / 絶滅 / 適応

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Serious impacts of nonnative malacophagous flatworms on native land snails on the Ogasawara Island were detected, and medium size-large species have become mostly extinct on Chichijima. However, native micro snails were still survive and widely distributed on the island. Nonnative land snails Acusta and Satsuma were not affected by flatworms and extended their distributions. Mucus of native land snails attract flatworms, while mucus of nonnative species exhibited repellent action against flatworms. In addition, Acusta avoid attack of the flatworms by active defense behavior. These characteristics appear to be a result of adaptation against predation of flatworms on mainland, and are effective to mitigate impacts of the nonnative predators.

Free Research Field

生態学