The evolutionary factor driving spider community on young artificial islands

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 24770013
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Ecology/Environment
• Research Institution: Miyagi University of Education
• Principal Investigator: HAYASHI Morito 宮城教育大学, 環境教育実践研究センター, 協力研究員 (70625037)
• Project Period (FY): 2012-04-01 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 国際研究者交流 / サラグモ / アシナガグモ / 島嶼生態学 / 進化生態学

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Island organism is an ideal model to research evolution given that the evolutionary process proceeds almost independently. However, even the ideal model has a critical weak point suspending long term in which we cannot observe initial stage of evolution on islands, simply because oceanic islands are normally very old. Therefore, I challenged to research spiders on young artificial islands, which have been created within 85 years, to detect what kind of evolutionary factor influences population and community on the newborn archipelago. As results, unexpectedly fast behavioural evolution was discovered, meaning that an island organism evolves behavioural features from the first stage of colonization.

Free Research Field

進化生態学