Research Activities

Graduate School: Seminar on Terrestrial Ecology, Seminar on Forest Biological Dynamics. Undergraduate School: Seminar on Forest Ecology and Management, Basic Seminar on Forest Sciences.

Literature

The changing relationship between human societies and ecosystems has been causing a loss of biodiversity and deterioration in ecosystem services. I'm currently using observational studies and field experiments to address the following issues:
(1) Sustainable use of forest biological resources and forest ecosystems: specifically, estimating the ecological impact of increasing deer populations; restoring ecosystem functions of ex-coppice woodlands under high pressure of deer herbivory, and estimating ecological impact of selective logging in natural forests.
(2) Understanding the relative contribution of deterministic and stochastic mechanisms in community dynamics.
(3) Developmental mechanisms of tree architecture as a composition of semi-autonomous branchlets.

Other Activities

1) Suzuki M, Miyashita T, Kabaya H, Ochiai K, Asada M, Kikvidze Z (in press) Deer herbivory as an important driver of divergence of ground vegetation communities in temperate forests. Oikos (doi: 10.1111/j.1600-0706.2012.20431.x)
2) Kikvidze Z, Suzuki M, Brooker R (2011) Importance versus intensity of ecological effects: why context matters. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 26:383-388 3) Suzuki M (2011) Effects of the topographic niche differentiation on the coexistence of major and minor species in a species-rich temperate forest. Ecological Research 26: 317-326
4) Suzuki AA, Suzuki M (2009) Why do lower order branches show greater shoot growth than higher order branches? Considering space availability as a factor affecting shoot growth. Trees 23: 69-77
5) Miyashita T, Suzuki M, Ando D, Fujita G, Ochiai K, Asada M (2008) Forest edge creates small-scale variation in reproductive rate of sika deer in a donor-control fashion. Population Ecology 50: 111-120
6) Suzuki M, Miyashita T, Kabaya H, Ochiai K, Asada M (2008) Deer density affects ground-layer vegetation differently in conifer plantations and hardwood forests on the Boso Peninsula, Japan. Ecological Research 23: 151-158
7) Miyashita T, Suzuki M, Takada M, Fujita G, Ochiai K, Asada M (2007) Landscape structure affects food quality of sika deer (Cervus Nippon) evidenced by fecal nitrogen levels. Population Ecology 49: 185-190
8) Miyazawa Y, Ishihara M, Suzuki M, Fukumasu H, Kikuzawa K (2006) Comparison of physiology, morphology, and leaf demography between tropical pioneer saplings with different crown shapes. Journal of Plant Research 119: 459-467
9) Kikuzawa K, Shirakawa H, Suzuki M, Umeki K (2004) Mean labor time of a leaf. Ecological Research 19: 365-374
10) Suzuki M (2004) Size structure of current-year shoots in mature crowns. Annals of Botany 92: 339-347
11) Suzuki M, Hiura T (2000) Allometric differences between current-year shoots and large branches of deciduous broad-leaved tree species. Tree Physiology 20: 203-209

Future Plan

Ecological Society of Japan (Program Committee of ESJ 60), Forestry Society of Japan

Messages to Students

Our team is running a broad-scale, long-term experiment for the restoration of ex-coppice woodland in The University of Tokyo Chiba Forest. We hope to develop closer associations with scientists in various fields-such as plant and animal ecology, community studies, soil chemistry, and physics-through this experiment. Our experimental results have sometimes uncovered important questions we had previously believed were already known, thus bringing about new hypotheses. This means we are challenging not only applied environmental studies but also basic ecological studies, including those related to plant-animal interaction, the trade-off between growth and defense, and the contribution of disturbance and niche partitioning to community structure.