The University of Tokyo · Environmental Science
Professor Shin-ichi Ito's research lab specializes in marine ecosystem dynamics, focusing on the ecological responses of pelagic fish—particularly Pacific saury and chub mackerel—to environmental changes. The lab integrates bioenergetics modeling, ecosystem modeling, and environmental DNA (eDNA) techniques to understand fish population dynamics, trophic interactions, and climate change impacts in the northwestern Pacific. A key focus is on linking oceanographic conditions, such as sea surface temperature and water mass transitions, to fish growth, recruitment, and distribution using both observational data and predictive models.
Figures are computed from collected data and may differ slightly.
Abstract A fish bioenergetics model coupled with an ecosystem model was developed to reproduce the growth of Pacific saury. The model spatially covers three different oceanographic spatial domains corresponding to the Kuroshio, Oyashio, and interfrontal (mixed water) regions. In this coupled model, three (small, large, and predatory) zooplankton densities which were derived from the lower trophic level ecosystem model were input to the bioenergetics model of saury as the prey densities. Although
Environmental DNA (eDNA) is increasingly used to noninvasively monitor aquatic animals in freshwater and coastal areas. However, the use of eDNA in the open ocean (hereafter referred to OceanDNA) is still limited because of the sparse distribution of eDNA in the open ocean. Small pelagic fish have a large biomass and are widely distributed in the open ocean. We tested the performance of two OceanDNA analysis methods-species-specific qPCR (quantitative polymerase chain reaction) and MiFish metaba
Abstract Ito, S-I., Okunishi, T., Kishi, M. J., and Wang, M. 2013. Modelling ecological responses of Pacific saury (Cololabis saira) to future climate change and its uncertainty. – ICES Journal of Marine Science, 70: 980–990. An ecosystem-based bioenergetics model was used to investigate the responses of Pacific saury (Cololabis saira) to global warming. The model was forced by the projected sea surface temperature (SST) generated by climate models that formed the bases for the Intergovernmental
Abstract Available evidence of recent climate‐induced physical and chemical changes in the oceans is summarized, including changes in sea temperatures, nutrient supply, mixing and circulation, trace element supply, acidification, and sea‐level rise. The biological responses in the marine environment to these documented physical changes are then presented by trophic level. Our ability to project ecosystem responses to likely future global change is discussed, including numerous examples of existi
Abstract The comprehensive study of the variation of the oceanic environment and fish populations in the northwestern Pacific (VENFISH) was an interdisciplinary scientific program to enhance our understanding of relationships between the ocean environment and the pelagic fishes, Pacific saury and walleye pollock. As prey of saury and walleye pollock, key species of zooplankton were selected and their life history and production were elucidated. Retrospective analyses were also conducted to inves
To determine the temperature history of early life stages of chub mackerel (Scomber japonicus), otolith stable oxygen isotope ratios (δ18Ootolith) of larval and juvenile fish collected in the Kuroshio–Oyashio transition area during 2004–2015 were analyzed, and experienced temperatures were estimated accordingly. The δ18Ootolith values decreased with otolith growth during the larval stage, whereas those for juveniles were positively correlated with otolith radius and increased with increasing oto
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