The Past Awardees

Associate Professor, Botany Department, The Faculty of Science University of Tokyo

He analyzed production activities of phytoplankton in lakes and oceans, focusing on phytoplankton and autotrophic bacteria, elucidating the change of primary production in relation to environmental factors.

Associate Professor, Department of Forestry, Faculty of Agriculture, Kyoto University

He established a model to quantitatively describe the dynamics of compositions in water circulation. It was based on abundant data on precipitation and run-off in small basins in mountainous areas.
 

Chief, Ecosystem Study Section, Environmental Biology Division, National Institute for Environmental Studies

He analyzed the ecology of chironomids in Lake Kasumigaura and other lakes with special reference to the mechanisms of population dynamics and secondary production. He evaluated quantitatively the role of chironomids in nutrient cycling of lakes and also established a model to evaluate the role.

Associate Professor, Wakayama Prefectural University of Medical Sciences

He was the first to discover that a fish can obtain food easily even if it shares its living area with other fish species which has similar feeding habits but has different ways to catch food, focusing on cichlid fish in Lake Tanganyika.
 

Professor, Department of Silviculture, Kasetsart University

He has studied the ecosystem and functions of mangrove forests in Thailand and neighboring countries for many years, with a special focus on their productivity and material circulation therein. Moreover, with these studies, he has proposed methodologies and promoted public awareness and activities for their conservation and restoration.

Chief, Ecosystem Laboratory, National Institute for Environmental Studies

She has studied the eco-physiological characteristics, such as distribution, photosynthesis, nutrient uptake, sedimentation, decomposition and overwintering of algal blooms composing of Microcystis in Lake Kasumigaura.
 

Deputy Director, Professor, State Key Laboratory of Environmental Aquatic Chemistry Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences

He clarified the characteristic features of eutrophication and algal bloom in Chinese shallow lakes. Moreover, he proposed ecotechnological countermeasures against eutrophication, such as the ”scattered multi-pond system” for the control of eutrophication, and the field studies that the ecologically sound management of such an ecotone can be effective for the improvement of lake water quality.

Director, Fisheries Oceanography Division, Seikai National Fisheries Research Institute, Fisheries Agency of Japan

In a zooplankton community as a whole, he found that differences in measured metabolic rates were caused by the body weight of the species concerned and the ambient temperature. Furthermore, he tried to estimate the rates of grazing, biomass production, nitrogen excretion, etc., for the zooplankton community in the oligotrophic Kuroshio waters.
 

Professor, Marine Science Institute, College of Science, University of the Philippines

His work had clearly established that the seagrass beds of Southeast Asia are comparatively well developed, and that the 27 countries to the Indo-West Pacific region are devisable into seven distinct ”seagrass provinces”. Moreover, his research has shown that seagrass beds, as areas of high organic productivity, are ecosystems that rival coral reefs and mangrove swamps in importance.

Professor, Suwa Hydrobiological Station, Faculty of Science, Shinshu University

He conducts research on the ecology of lake zooplankton. In illuminating the central role played in eutrophic lakes by the detritus food chain, he has made a significant academic contribution to our understanding of the process of material cycle in eutrophic lakes.
 

Head, Laboratory of Hydrobiology and Systematics of Fresh Water Organisms, Limnological Institute, Siberian Division of Russian Academy of Sciences

He has made significant achievements in the fields of taxonomy, ecology and evolution of free living Plathelmintes(”Turbellaria”) and the ecology of macrozooplankton in Lake Baikal, Siberia. He has also obtained excellent results by comparative study on the process of formation and evolution of biodiversity among ancient Asian lakes; Lake Baikal, Russia; Lake Biwa, Japan; and Lake Hubsugul, Mongolia.

Deputy Head Research Scientist, Lake Biwa Museum

Based on detailed research on fossilized cyprinid pharyngeal teeth, he elucidated the paleo-environment and transition of the fish fauna over the period from Paleo-Lake Biwa to present-day Lake Biwa. Among his findings in this regard include the discovery that the Paleo-Lake Biwa environment consisted generally of marshes and swamps, and that the present environment of Lake Biwa is rather peculiar in its history. He contributed greatly to research on the origins of Lake Biwa biota.
 

Professor, Institute of Marine Geology and Chemistry, National Sun Yat-Sen University

He showed the stable structure of ocean and lake water and derived a new equation that relates water density to temperature and pressure of ocean and lakes. Furthermore, he quantitatively proved that atmospheric CO2 dissolves in the ocean, researched sediments of lakes in Taiwan and examined the relation between climate changes and human activity.

Research Associate, Institute for Hydrospheric-Atmospheric Sciences, Nagoya University

He developed a new method for measuring organic production and the methods for the analysis of organic molecular movement and has been active in research in organism production. He clarified the early stage of organism production and the organic molecular movement, and contributed to the understanding of the molecular movement of ecosystems in lakes and oceans.
 

Dean, School of Environment, Resources and Development, Asian Institute of Technology

As a leading scientist in Asia in the field of Ecological Engineering with particular emphasis on community-based recycling of household and agricultural wastes, he has made outstanding contributions in the field low-cost waste treatment technologies applicable under tropical climate. One of his major accomplishments has been the derivation, based on controlled field experiments, of engineering design criteria for sewage ponds introduced with water hyacinths, the plant species known to have a very high nutrient uptake capability and growth rate and, for that very reason, known also to cause serious nuisance situations in great many tropical water bodies.

Professor, Faculty of Biotechnology, Fukui Prefectural University

He has introduced molecular techniques, DNA ones in particular, into ecological study, and found various facts important for population ecology, including the discovery that the ayu (Plecoglossus altivelis) in Lake Biwa has differed from the amphidromous form of ayu for more than one hundred thousand years. Futhermore, he discovered that the crown-of -thorns starfish (Acanthaster planci), which destroy coral reefs, are genetically very similar to each other even in populations distantly separated by wide open ocean. He has played an internationally prominent role in this field.
 

Professor, Institute of Hydrobiology, Chinese Academy of Science

By clarifying the mechanisms of food chain systems in lakes, he clarified how the biotic compositions which are characteristic of seasons or lake-dependent are established. Based on these results, he verified the effectiveness of introducing phytophagous fish for eutrophication control in lakes and indicated the direction for management of ecosystem in lakes.

Research Associate,Institute for Hydrospheric-Atmospheric Sciences, Nagoya University

He introduced the carbon and nitrogen stable isotope ratio measurement method for the analysis of ecosystem in lakes and brought new qualitative development to studies of this kind. He implemented the detailed analysis of food chain systems in lakes using this measurement method and showed that the measurement method can be also applied to the analysis of previous environmental changes in lakes.
 

Professor & Head Department, Department of Ecology & Biodiversity, The University of Hong Kong

At the University of Hong Kong, he has been concentrating on the study of ecological systems of tropical rivers, focusing on aquatic insects in Asia. He also teaches students ecology based on the results of his studies, and at present contributes to society by transmitting information related to biodiversity conservation in tropical Asia.

Senior researcher at Marine Geology Department Geological Survey of Japan

She analyzed material cycle mechanisms in brackish lakes from the viewpoint of recycling of nitrogenous materials and has quantitatively clarified the roles in water purification of Corbicula japonica in Lake Shinji and diving ducks in Lakes Shinji and Nakaumi. She also pointed out, in her study of global-warming mechanisms, that coral reefs function as carbon sinks.
 

Associate Professor in Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University

He introduced a new viewpoint based on stoichometry in the analysis of growth and reproduction of plankton and its matter cycling in lakes. His work has attracted international attention. He also clarified that zooplankton suffer deficiency of phosphorus in phytoplankton food even in Lake Biwa where eutrophication is underway, because they need lots of phosphorus relative to phytoplankton in healthy growth.

Professor of Aquatic Biology, School of Biological Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia

He has been developing ecological and practical research on rice fish farming in Malaysia. Environmentally, rice fields are like coastal regions, and are interesting ecosystems from an academic viewpoint. The influence of human activities as a result of growing rice crops is complicated. Through his energetic research he has developed an integrated rice agro ecosystem.
 

Professor of Community Welfare Policy Course , Gifu Keizai University

He compared the forms of freshwater threespine stickleback, itoyo, and its subspecies hariyo, and their ecology in their natural habitat, conducted pairing experiments, and analyzed reproductive isolation in their reproductive behavior. As a result, he succeeded in confirming the process of evolution from the migratory type to the landlocked type. By means of multivariate analysis, he explicated in detail the situation leading to such behavior by male freshwater threespine stickleback, hariyo, and developed a unique method of comparing the degree of appropriateness of the freshwater threespine stickleback, hariyo, behavior according to social relationship factors, such as the location relationships of nests and the superiority/inferiority of individual fish.

Assistant Professor in the Department of Biology at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong

He has studied the assimilation and discharge of trace metal elements (essential for organisms) by aquatic organisms, as well as the processes of transfer of these metals through the mediation of food chains. He revealed the biological aspects of dynamic status of metals in water areas, factors not previously well known. Due to his contributions, however it has become possible to estimate the density of heavy metal accumulation within the bodies of aquatic organisms by measuring the amounts of such metals in the environment.
 

Chief researcher of the Lake Environment Section, The National Institute for Environmental Studies

Chief researcher of the Lake Environment Section, The National Institute for Environmental StudiesIn recent years, though there appears to be no suppression of organic load nor increase in phytoplankton in many lakes, there is an increase in the quantity of dissolved organic matters (persistent dissolved organic matters), which is the background of his study. He developed and established a technology to fractionate dissolved organic matters into five elements (humic materials, hydrophilic acid, hydrophilic base matters, hydrophilic neutral matters, and hydrophobic neutral matters), thereby reconstructing the contents and origin of dissolved organic matters that have effects on living matters and water quality.

Professor of the Department of Biology, Pusan University, R. O. Korea

He began environmental monitoring at the mouth of the Nakdong River, the second longest river in South Korea, where an estuary weir was constructed. From comprehensive characterization of data obtained through long-term monitoring, he made a lot of ecological findings about the effects of human activities on rivers. The comprehensive knowledge will be utilized as scientific data for future construction and refurbishment of estuary weirs.
 

Associate Professor, Ocean Research Institute, The University of Tokyo

Research Fellow, Research Center for Biodiversity, Academia Sinica,Taiwan
 

It is presented by the Ecological Society of Japanon and after the 15th Award.