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Multicellular organisms have experienced large-scale chromosomal rearrangements at the key regulatory loci associated with phenotypic evolution. In the Hakubi project, I will develop an experimental system that artificially reconstitutes the large-scale chromosomal rearrangements. This experimental system aims to elucidate how chromosomal rearrangements affect the direction of phenotypic evolution at the molecular level. More specifically, I will establish experimental methods to manipulate chromosomes rearrangements on a large scale in an emerging model organism (harlequin ladybug). With this constructive approach, I aim to understand the evolutionary process of the ladybug by artificially reconstructing the chromosomal rearrangements associated with phenotypic diversification.

I have been focusing on the principles of morphogenesis of beautiful and functional body structures and the evolutionary background of their acquisition at the molecular level. By exploiting the constitutive method of chromosome manipulation that I will develop in this project, I would like to glimpse the evolutionary process by which multicellular organisms have acquired the characteristics of organs with functional beauty and demonstrate the extent to which such manipulation is possible.