KAKUI Keiichi
Lecturer
Diversity in invertebrates
Department of Biological Sciences, Biodiversity
Theme | Taxonomy and biology of marine invertebrates, especially the crustacean order Tanaidacea |
Field | Systematic zoology, Reproductive biology, Morphology, Zoology |
Keyword | Marine invertebrates, Arthropoda, Crustacea, Tanaidacea, Benthos, Taxonomy, New species, Molecular phylogeny, Reproduction, Sexual mode, Morphology, Life cycle, Evolution |
Introduction of Research
I am interested in the taxonomy, phylogeny, reproductive biology, morphology, and evolution of invertebrate animals. The main focus of my research is the order Tanaidacea, a group of tiny aquatic crustaceans, with around 1500 species. However, past or ongoing collaborative projects in taxonomy and phylogeny have dealt with animal groups other than tanaidaceans, including isopods, amphipods, ingolfiellid, decapods, ostracods, copepods, mite, sea spiders, nematodes, nematomorph, entoproct, nemertean, annelids, platyhelminthes, feather star, and xenoturbelid.
Various tanaidaceans A parasitic copepod (arrow) on a tanaidacean A tanaidacean which can self-fertilize A deep-sea tanaidacean with a wide distributional range spanning at least 3700 km A tanaidacean described by my student, one collaborator, and me; it spins threads to make its tube-like nest (cf. Kakui et al. 2021) A hermit-crab-like tanaidacean. Movie available at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.7916288
Representative Achievements
Kakui K, Fukuchi J, Ohta M (2023) Diexanthema hakuhomaruae sp. nov. (Copepoda: Siphonostomatoida: Nicothoidae) from the hadal zone in the northwestern Pacific, with an 18S molecular phylogeny. Acta Parasitologica.
Kakui K, Hiruta C (2022) Protogynous hermaphroditism in Crustacea: a new example from Tanaidacea. Canadian Journal of Zoology 100: 481–487.
Kakui K, Shimada D (2022) Dive into the sea: first molecular phylogenetic evidence of host expansion from terrestrial/freshwater to marine organisms in Mermithidae (Nematoda: Mermithida). Journal of Helminthology 96: e33.
Kakui K, Hiruta C (2022) Description of a new Hamatipeda species, with an 18S molecular phylogeny (Crustacea: Tanaidacea: Typhlotanaidae). Zoological Science 39: 140–146.
Kakui K, Fleming JF, Mori M, Fujiwara Y, Arakawa K (2021) Comprehensive transcriptome sequencing of Tanaidacea with proteomic evidences for their silk. Genome Biology and Evolution 13: evab281.