astronomy

Tadashi Fukami

Tadashi Fukami is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Tadashi Fukami rather than just read about it. In short: Tadashi Fukami is a Japanese-American ecologist. He is an associate Professor of Biology and community ecologist at Stanford University.

Key takeaways

Tadashi Fukami belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Tadashi Fukami to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Tadashi Fukami from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Tadashi Fukami is a Japanese-American ecologist. He is an associate Professor of Biology and community ecologist at Stanford University. He is currently the head of Fukami Lab which is a community ecology research group that focuses on "historical contingency in the assembly of ecological communities." Fukami is an elected Fellow of the Ecological Society of America.

Early life and education In an interview with Oikos Editorial Office, Fukami explains that even though he grew up near Tokyo, he would visit Wakayama with his family for vacation several times a year, sparking his interest in nature. Fukami received his Bachelor's degree from Waseda University in 1996, his Master's degree at the University of Tokyo in 1998, and his Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, in 2003.

Career and research Fukami was a postdoctoral fellow at Landcare Research in New Zealand from 2003-2005. He then went on to be an assistant professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa from 2006-2008. He has been at Stanford University since 2008. Fukami's work has aimed to better understand how patterns of species immigration into communities, including via dispersal, influences community assembly. In 2019, he was elected as a fellow to the Ecological Society of America for his "contributions to advancing community, ecosystem, and evolutionary ecology through a novel focus on historical contingency in community assembly". His work has also explored how historical contingency and priority effects influences the function as well as the structure of ecological communities.

Notable publications Fukami's research on community ecology, community assembly, alternate stable states and historical contingency has been published in multiple academic journals. Below, some of his most-cited papers are listed.

Selected publications McFall-Ngai, M., Hadfield, M.G., Bosch, T.C., Carey, H.V., Domazet-Lošo, T., Douglas, A.E., Dubilier, N., Eberl, G., Fukami, T., Gilbert, S.F. and Hentschel, U., 2013. Animals in a bacterial world, a new imperative for the life sciences. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(9), pp.3229-3236. Nemergut, D.R., Schmidt, S.K., Fukami, T., O'Neill, S.P., Bilinski, T.M., Stanish, L.F., Knelman, J.E., Darcy, J.L., Lynch, R.C., Wickey, P. and Ferrenberg, S., 2013. Patterns and processes of microbial community assembly. Microbiology and Molecular Biology Reviews, 77(3), pp.342-356. Fukami, T., 2015. Historical contingency in community assembly: integrating niches, species pools, and priority effects. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, 46, pp.1-23. Fukami, T., Martijn Bezemer, T., Mortimer, S.R. and van der Putten, W.H., 2005. Species divergence and trait convergence in experimental plant community assembly. Ecology letters, 8(12), pp.1283-1290. Fukami, T., Dickie, I.A., Paula Wilkie, J., Paulus, B.C., Park, D., Roberts, A., Buchanan, P.K. and Allen, R.B., 2010. Assembly history dictates ecosystem functioning: evidence from wood decomposer communities. Ecology letters, 13(6), pp.675-684. Fukami, T. and Wardle, D.A., 2005. Long-term ecological dynamics: reciprocal insights from natural and anthropogenic gradients. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 272(1577), pp.2105-2115.

Honors and awards Awards include:

Fellow, Ecological Society of America (2019) Presidential Award, American Society of Naturalists (2019) Outstanding Ecological Theory Paper Award, Ecological Society of America Theoretical Ecology Section (2017) Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching, School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University (2015) Science prize for inquiry-based instruction, Science magazine, AAAS (2013) CAREER award, National Science Foundation (2012) Denzaburo Miyadi Award, Ecological Society of Japan (2005)

References

External links Tadashi Fukami publications indexed by Google Scholar

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Tadashi Fukami

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Tadashi Fukami claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Tadashi Fukami before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Tadashi Fukami ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Tadashi Fukami

In research: Tadashi Fukami appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Tadashi Fukami in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Tadashi Fukami is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 21st-century Japanese biologists, American academics of Japanese descent, American ecologists, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Tadashi Fukami outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Tadashi Fukami in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Tadashi Fukami means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Tadashi Fukami out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Tadashi Fukami in simple terms?

Tadashi Fukami is a Japanese-American ecologist. He is an associate Professor of Biology and community ecologist at Stanford University.

Why does Tadashi Fukami matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Tadashi Fukami?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Tadashi Fukami.