On 2 August 2004, Dr. Eitaro Wada was appointed as Director of the Ecosystem Change Research Program. Dr. Yoshifumi Yasuoka, professor of Institute of Industrial Science, University of Tokyo served as a Program Director of Ecosystem Change Research Program as an additional post since the program's establishment in Octover 1999. When Dr. Yasuoka resigned the position in March 2004, Dr. Taroh Matsuno, Director-General of FRCGC and Director of Global Environment Modeling Research Program, became the Director of the said program and led its research activities. Dr. Wada will introduce his past activities and future plan of his program.

Eitaro Wada
Program Director, Ecosystem Change Research Program

Dr. Wada received his BS in 1962, MS in 1964 and Ph. D of Science in 1967 from the Department of Chemistry, the Tokyo University Research Institute. He has served various posts in different sectors including as a research fellow at Ocean Research Institute, University of Tokyo, a visiting researcher at Ocean Research Institute, University of Texas, Department Director of Mitsubishi Kagaku Institute of Life Science, and Director-General of Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University. His latest position before joining FRCGC was a professor of Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, part of National Institute for Humanities (Inter-University Research Institute Corporation). Dr. Wada is expert in biogeochemistry and isotope ecology. By keeping his expertise, and utilizing his broad experiences and knowledge, he has conducted his research on various ecological fields in both marine and terrestrial environments. He has recieved Okada Prize of the Oceanographic Society of Japan, and is Honor Professor of Kyoto University and Siberian Branch Russian Academy of Science
I have become the Program Director of the Ecosystem Change Research Program on the 1st of August in this year. This program was established almost five years ago in October 1, 1999, under the leadership of Prof. Yoshifumi Yasuoka. Five years of efforts by the Program members have been performed in the field of ecosystem modeling, which is a rather new field of science. The following research subjects are now undertaken.

1) The ecosystem process model on carbon cycling (Sim- CYCLE) has been developed to evaluate the influence of terrestrial ecosystem change on climatic/environmental change. Modeling of the effects of climate changes on vegetation, forest dynamics, and the installation of Sim- CYCLE to the FRCGC integrated model for global change are also undertaken.

2) Marine biological research has been focused both on changes of temporal/spatial patterns in oceanic ecosystems and a modeling of oceanic food web ecosystems.

3) In addition, ecosystem change detection and data assimilation have been conducted by using satellite remote sensing. Satellite observational methods have been improved for assessing the spatial distribution and dynamics of ecosystem-related variables.

Although the basic knowledge on temporal and spatial phenomena remains unclear, because of the highly complex characteristics of natural ecosystems, our program has made significant progress during this past five years. Here, I would like to introduce my experiences for conducting the ecological projects supported by MEXT and Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) concerned with global environmental issues. IGBP-MEXT(Second Term) was conducted from fiscal year 1997 to 2001 with the project title of 'Response of Terrestrial Watershed Ecosystem to Global Change' along a line of IGBP-GCTE-TEMA in Monsoon Asia. In this project, I was a project leader and Prof. T. Kohyama of Hokkaido University was a sub-leader with the project office at the Institute for Hydrosphere-Atmosphere Sciences of Nagoya University. Responses of the watershed to elevated CO2 concentration were investigated along the expanding spatial scale from a leaf, shoot, tree, forest/soil to a stream, river and lake. Here, IGBP, GCTE and TEMA denote International Geosphere?Biosphere Programme, Global Change and Terrestrial Ecosystem, and Terrestrial Ecosystem in Monsoon Asia, respectively. IGBP was initiated in 1991 and succeeded its first phase of almost 10 years, over 11 research areas concerning carbon cycling. Almost all young scientists in our ecosystem program probably gained some scientific experience in the implementation of IGBP program during this past ten years. Two other projects were also conducted simultaneously from 1997 to 2001. One is JSPS'project on the environmental conservation in Asian regions named "Research for the Future Program with emphasis on interactive cycles between humans and nature in the lake Biwa-Yodo River Watershed". The second concerned the biodiversity funded by a MEXT Grant-in Aid for Creative Basic Research. I participated as a project leader for the former and a core member for the latter. As the chief of the Center for Ecological Research of Kyoto University from 1996 to 2000, I was quite busy with the administrative duties as well as these research projects. However, during these years, I learned much concerning global environmental issues, carbon and nitrogen cycling, biodiversity, and sociobiogeochemistry, which is a part of social sciences. The project on the Lake Biwa-Yodo River watershed is still continuing in Research Institute for Humanity and Nature, the previous institute I stayed. On the basis of these project experiences, I would like to promote the activities of our Ecosystem Change Research Program with a broad perspective concerning global warming and the interactive cycles between humans and nature. Below is a schematic figure illustrating a framework of research expected in our program, with the location indicated for each project undertaking in this fiscal year. Red-colored key words correspond to my new aspects in our program. The following points will be taken into consideration as important items.

1) It is rather easy to decide a project title. However it is very difficult to clarify its practical purposes with practical
implementations.

2) The inter-disciplinary complex between natural and social sciences could be understood and allied within each individual. Integration over different disciplines could be promoted more effectively with progress in mutual understanding by means of cooperative studies.

3) Applied and basic studies can be applied to social dimensions, for example, by introducing an informative index or modeling for assessing the adaptive management of P-D-C-A (Planning-Do-Check-Action) cycle.

A new paradigm on temporal and spatial dimensions is created in the field of ecology by combining satellite information, the Earth Simulator system and ecosystem modeling. Examination of our proposed model could be conducted by using time-integrated parameters such as stable isotope ratio and genetic sequences. The second phase of our program (2004-2009) will focus on the following; 1) elucidation of fundamental ecosystem processes that govern the ecosystem response to climatic global change, 2) the installation of ecosystem models to the global integrated model and 3) intensive scientific contributions to the social systems involving developments of diagnostic indicators and models. We will strive to develop pioneering research and achieve significant results in these fields.
 
Frontier Newsletter/No.26
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