| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,420,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,400,000、Indirect Cost: ¥1,020,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2012: ¥1,040,000 (Direct Cost: ¥800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥240,000)
Fiscal Year 2011: ¥2,340,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,800,000、Indirect Cost: ¥540,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Because dragonflies visually recognize conspecific and heterospecific individuals, their body color plays essential roles in their ecology and reproductive biology. Unlike most insects, some dragonflies change their body color dramatically upon sexual maturation. While many ecological and behavioral studies have been focused on this topic, molecular mechanisms underlying the color pattern formation have been poorly understood. I analyzed pigments and genes that are involved in the different color patterns in dragonflies. Notably, I found that sex-specific redox changes in ommochrome pigments cause the yellow-red color transition in some dragonflies, which unveils a previously unknown molecular mechanism underlying body color change in animals.
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