Nice to meet you

 1. About Myself

My name is Shohei Kondo.

I was born in Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan. However, I spent almost 20 years in Okinawa Prefecture, so I think it is also fair to say that I am from Okinawa.

I moved to Gifu Prefecture when I decided to change my career.

About 15 years ago, when I was a master's student, there were some things I wanted to study but could not finish. I remembered those unfinished goals and decided to enter the doctoral program at Gifu University as a working adult student.

2. My Academic Field and Research

My academic field is evolutionary ecology.

Web-building spiders use their own resources to build webs for catching prey. You can think of this as a kind of investment. It is similar to how humans invest their money to make a profit. If a spider makes a bad investment, it may fail to survive. By studying spider webs, we can learn about the rules of investment in the spider world.

Spider webs have different angles, and each species generally builds its web at a certain angle.

Previous studies suggest that horizontal webs may be less efficient investments than vertical webs. However, horizontal webs still exist in nature, so they must have some advantages.

In my research, I would like to discover what makes horizontal orb webs better than vertical orb webs.

3. Food and Culture

It has suddenly become much colder recently. This is the season when Oden tastes especially good.

Oden is a traditional Japanese dish, but its ingredients and flavors vary greatly from region to region. Each family also has its own version.

This is the Oden I made. 

Okinawan Oden is different from Oden in mainland Japan. It often contains pork feet, called "Tebichi."

Oden in mainland Japan usually does not contain much animal fat, but Okinawan Oden is very “Gitogito”　 (a Japanese word meaning very oily)