Dr Junya Watanabe

As of December 2023, Junya Watanabe has moved out of the Department. He is now a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Genetics and Microbiology, Autonomous University of Barcelona, Spain. His new email address is Junya.Watanabe[at]uab.cat.

My primary research interest lies on the internal drivers of organismal evolution that have shaped the tremendous phenotypic diversity of living organisms. I focus on birds as a study system, employing various approaches, such as collections research, fieldwork, dissection, morphometrics, and statistical analysis including multivariate analyses, phylogenetic comparative methods, and model selection approaches.

Previous research projects include:

Ontogeny of the avian limb skeleton from macroscopic and histological observations
Relationships between ontogenetic trajectories and evolutionary diversification in the avian limb skeleton
Reconstruction of the wing musculature in extinct flightless alcids
Discriminant analysis with AIC-based model selection applied to extinct flightless anatids
Systematics of Pleistocene birds from Japan

I am currently working on methodological developments in morphometrics and phylogenetic comparative methods, focusing on covariation in multivariate characters.

Evolutionary biology

Morphometrics

Avian anatomy

Research

I was originally trained as a palaeontologist, with a particular focus on systematic relationships among modern and fossil birds. I have worked with my colleagues on the Pleistocene seabird fossils from Shiriya, northeast Japan, and have described two species new to science. In a series of papers, I have documented the entire bird assemblage from the locality, and proposed a hypothesis on the potential relationship between local extinction of some species and oceanographic fluctuations in the Pleistocene, combining current knowledge on seabird ecology and palaeoclimate.
My Ph.D. dissertation focused on postnatal ontogeny of the avian limb skeleton. For this project, I collected ontogenetic series of five species of modern birds through fieldwork, and described ontogenetic variation of the macroscopic morphology, surface texture, and histology of their limb bones. These data were synthesised to establish a reliable criterion to assess ontogenetic stages of avian fossil/skeletal specimens. Next, focusing on the avian limb skeleton as a study system, I explored the potential relationship between evolutionary variability and ontogenetic trajectory. I compiled a dataset from measurement of >2500 specimens from museum collections, and conducted multivariate morphometric analyses. The primary finding is the presence of clade-specific association between evolutionary and ontogenetic major axes of variation. The results imply that evolutionary diversification in this system might have been biased in the direction of ontogenetic trajectories, hinting potential predictability of evolution with information on ontogeny.

Publications

Key publications:

Watanabe, J., 2023. Distribution theories for genetic line of least resistance and evolvability measures. bioRxiv, 2023.10.07.561348. doi: 10.1101/2023.10.07.561348.

Watanabe, J., 2023. Exact expressions and numerical evaluation of average evolvability measures for characterizing and comparing G matrices. Journal of Mathematical Biology, 86: 95. doi: 10.1007/s00285-023-01930-8.

Watanabe, J., 2022. Detecting (non)parallel evolution in multidimensional spaces: angles, correlations and eigenanalysis. Biology Letters, 18: 20210638. doi: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0638.

Watanabe, J., 2022. Statistics of eigenvalue dispersion indices: quantifying the magnitude of phenotypic integration. Evolution, 76: 4–28. doi: 10.1111/evo.14382.

Watanabe, J., Field, D. J., Matsuoka, H., 2021. Wing musculature reconstruction in extinct flightless auks (Pinguinus and Mancalla) reveals incomplete convergence with penguins (Spheniscidae) due to differing ancestral states. Integrative Organismal Biology, 3: obaa040. doi: 10.1093/iob/obaa040.

Watanabe, J., Matsuoka, H., Hasegawa, Y., 2020. Pleistocene seabirds from Shiriya, northeast Japan: systematics and oceanographic context. Historical Biology, 32: 671–729. doi: 10.1080/08912963.2018.1529764.

Watanabe, J., 2018. Clade-specific evolutionary diversification along ontogenetic major axes in avian limb skeleton. Evolution, 72: 2632–2652. doi: 10.1111/evo.13627.

Watanabe, J., 2018. Ontogeny of surface texture of limb bones in modern aquatic birds and applicability of textural ageing. Anatomical Record, 301: 1026–1045. doi: 10.1002/ar.23736.

Other publications:

Watanabe, J., Koizumi, A., Nakagawa, R., Takahashi, K., Tanaka, T., Matsuoka, H., 2020. Seabirds (Aves) from the Pleistocene Kazusa and Shimosa groups, central Japan. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 39: e1697277. doi: 10.1080/02724634.2019.1697277.

Watanabe, J., Matsuoka, H., Hasegawa, Y., 2018. Pleistocene non-passeriform landbirds from Shiriya, northeast Japan. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 63: 469–491. doi: 10.4202/app.00509.2018.

Watanabe, J., Matsuoka, H., Hasegawa, Y., 2018. Pleistocene fossils from Japan show the recently extinct spectacled cormorant (Phalacrocorax perspicillatus) was a relict. The Auk: Ornithological Advances, 135: 895–907. doi: 10.1642/AUK-18-54.1.

Watanabe, J., 2018. Ontogeny of macroscopic morphology of limb bones in modern aquatic birds and their implications for ontogenetic ageing. In: Acosta Hospitaleche, C., Agnolin, F. L., Haidr, N., Noriega, J. I. and Tambussi, C. P. (eds.), Paleontología y Evolución las Aves. Contribuciones del Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales Bernardino Rivadavia, 7. Museo Argentino de Ciencias Naturales "Bernardino Rivadavia," Buenos Aires. pp. 183–220. URL: http://hdl.handle.net/2433/232592.

Watanabe, J., 2017. Quantitative discrimination of flightlessness in fossil Anatidae from skeletal proportions. The Auk: Ornithological Advances, 134: 672–695. doi: 10.1642/AUK-17-23.1.

Watanabe, J., Matsuoka, H., Hasegawa, Y., 2016. Two species of Uria (Aves: Alcidae) from the Pleistocene of Shiriya, northeast Japan, with description and body mass estimation of a new species. Bulletin of Gunma Museum of Natural History, 20: 59–72. URL: http://www.gmnh.pref.gunma.jp/wp-content/uploads/bulletin20_2.pdf.

Kaiser, G., Watanabe, J., Johns, M., 2015. A new member of the family Plotopteridae (Aves) from the late Oligocene of British Columbia, Canada. Palaeontologia Electronica, 18: 18.3.52A. doi: 10.26879/563.

Watanabe, J., Matsuoka, H., 2015. Flightless diving duck (Aves, Anatidae) from the Pleistocene of Shiriya, northeast Japan. Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, 35: e994745. doi: 10.1080/02724634.2014.994745.

Watanabe, J., Matsuoka, H., 2013. Ontogenetic change of morphology and surface texture of long bones in the Gray Heron (Ardea cinerea, Ardeidae). In: Göhlich, U. and Kroh, A. (eds.), Paleornithological Research 2013: Proceedings of the 8th International Meeting of the Society of Avian Paleontology and Evolution, Vienna, 2012. Naturhistorisches Museum Wien, Vienna. pp. 279–306. URL: http://verlag.nhm-wien.ac.at/buecher/2013_SAPE_Proceedings/18_Watanabe_&_Matsuoka.pdf.