Established in 1928, the AMBL–Kyushu University is located within the Unzen-Amakusa National Park area of the Amakusa Shimoshima Island in Kyushu, south-western Japan.
Research and education at the AMBL have been fully benefitting from the island’s variable environmental conditions in between the temperate and the subtropical zones, with research being centred around the ecology of various aquatic systems, in particular the structure and functioning of species-rich communities.
Much research effort has been directed to
(1) intertidal population and community ecology, particularly studies on a variety of interspecific relations, and
(2) community structure and interspecific relations in reef ecosystems, covering a wide range of taxa including echinoderms, molluscs, arthropods, corals, fishes and algae.
Our main approach has been field-based research in combination with laboratory experiments and computer-intensive data analyses, including biogeographical comparisons across tropics/subtropics of East Asia where marine biodiversity is particularly high.
The AMBL-Kyushu University also hosts the administrative headquarters (secretariat) of the Society for Coastal Ecosystems Studies – Asia Pacific (SCESAP, http://www.scesap.org), an Asia-based regional academic organization.
In collaboration with SCESAP, the AMBL offers spring and summer field courses which are open to international students. Faced with ever-increasing threats to marine environments, the AMBL, together with its partners of SCESAP, engages in basic research, the value of which may not be immediately apparent but is nevertheless essential in order to widen our knowledge base for protecting the coastal ecosystems of Asia.
Address : Tokuoka Reihoku-cho, Amakusa-gun, Kumamoto Prefecture 863-2507, Japan
HP : http://ambl-ku.jp/nihongo/
Tel : 0969-35-0003 Fax: 0969-35-2413