Regular survey in April (2)

We made another regular survey under fine weather. Many animals seem to get active now.

s-IMG_2757

s-IMG_2750

s-IMG_2748 a dragon fly

s-IMG_2777 a snake

s-IMG_2775 a student with a snake

Winning poster

There was an event for first-year undergraduate students and the ones who interviewed me and our laboratory won the first prize for their poster! Congratulations! We may invite them in the 6th Shichirin-party on May 26, 2017.

s-Poster&TheTeam The great team

s-poster The poster; Can you find some fish swimming?

Regular survey in April

It’s getting warmer and fish seems to be active like we are after full bloom of sakura.

s-IMG_2620 They might have started migrating into irrigation system

s-IMG_2657 (2) First time to catch!!!

s-IMG_2613 (2) It’s a lot of work to remove the aquatic vegetation before irrigation.

Mango research

In the last 10 years, we have been working on improving production and distribution of fresh mango fruit, mainly in Thailand. It is always great to visit my colleagues in Chiang Mai University. Our experimental field looks fine now and I am looking forward to our joint experiment in the next growing season.

s-80A0A422-0FF1-451F-9C44-26ADE78C30BF Dr. Wolfram Spreer

s-703A2E34-CC75-4A40-A9B8-0E089E668D6C Our mango field for experiment

s-IMG_2601 A mango tree

s-610BF35A-0A6C-4434-8C21-E0A9097BFAC2 His greenhouse for experiment

Preliminary survey in Chiba

We went to Chiba for a preliminary survey. It was interesting to see geographic distributions of different fish species there and to meet fish species different from our regular surveys.

s-IMG_2252 (2) A terraced paddy

Graduated!!!

Three undergraduate students have graduated from our laboratory! They did great job in their research this year. Wishing all the best for their successful life!!! Hope to see them soon!

s-IMG_2165 At the ceremony

s-IMG_2174 Three students!

s-IMG_2182 After the ceremony

After the regular survey, we had the final party for FY2016 at Katsu-kichi, Shibuya.

s-IMG_2221 (2) a great plate under the law of the jungle

s-IMG_2222 (2) a gift for the three students

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s-IMG_2225 (2) with fish chocolates

s-IMG_2228 (2) After the party

s-IMG_2226 (2) PS: It looks like topmouth gudgeon

Joint seminar with Moriyama Lab. (Utsunomiya Univ.)

We had the first joint seminar with Moriyama Lab. at Utsunomiya University. There were four talks (two each from both labs), all of which were interesting. Two hours were not enough but we had very active discussion during lunch. It should be a good experience for my students to receive many comments from Prof. Moriyama and his lab members.

s-IMG_2081 (2) After the joint seminar

After the seminar, I joined the final seminar by Prof. Akira Goto, a leading hydrologist in Rural engineering. The 4-hour lecture was all interesting. Specifically, the lecture on the mind-set in rural engineering was impressive and inspiring for my research and education. Also, it was great to meet many people (more than 200 participants in the lecture) during the party for his retirement.

s-IMG_2082 (2) Final lecture by Prof. Goto

OG visited!

An OG, Saito san, visited my office. She did her bachelor thesis on species distribution modelling using random forests and graduated last year. It was great meeting her and I hope she will join us sometimes, perhaps in shichirin-party. Her experience shall be of great help for other students to better design their career in near future.

s-IMG_1921 (2) Marukawa san & Saito san

s-IMG_1922 (2) Nice souvenir!

Nama-dora-yaki, a raw dora-yaki, a kind of Japanese pancake sandwiching fresh strawberry cream was fantastic!!! Thank you!

Lab trip FY2016

After the successful defense by the UG4 students, we went to Yamanashi prefecture for our lab trip. It was great to learn very different landscape there. We visited an aquarium and other water-rich places as shown in the photos below. There are many spring-fed streams in which we could observe many fish (some were non-native, though). We also enjoyed local foods there. The only thing we missed was fishing. We need to go there again for fishing!

s-IMG_1572 (2) Mt. Fuji!!!