Career Path for Taichi Suzuki

Fast Facts:

• Number of years in school: 25
• Favorite class / subject: Biology
  
• Hardest class / subject: Learning English in Japan
• First Job: Pet shop
  
• Dream job as a kid: Scientist
• One word you would use to describe your current job: Hobby
  

A watercolor painting by Taichi Suzuki that depicts a salamander on the forest floor. Click to expand image.

As a young Taichi Suzuki ventured along the trail, he paused for a moment to open his senses to the world around him. The bushes beckoned with a lush green. He traced his fingertips along the gnarled surface of a tree, imagining how the wind shaped the bark. The air hummed with buzzing insects flying to and fro. A salamander crawled slowly across the trail, lightly grazing against the leaves in its path. All these moments painted a mysterious tale. With his imagination ignited, Suzuki put pencil to paper so he could capture the natural beauty.

Suzuki has been fascinated with nature ever since he was a young boy in Japan. He spent many days of his youth collecting insects to raise in terrariums. It was during this time that he conducted this first experiment. He wanted to know if male praying mantids that aren’t eaten by their mates can reproduce more than once. If they did, they could have many more offspring, which would be better for the males in terms of fitness. He found this was true… males would indeed mate many times if they weren’t eaten by their lovers. So why were they eaten so often by their mates? He concluded that the females might get an even larger nutrient benefit from the nice meal the male’s body can provide. This could result in more offspring overall.

Female praying mantids will often eat the bodies of males shortly after mating. Image credit Oliver Koemmerling via Wikimedia commons.

As he got older, his curiosity grew with him. At first, he wanted to pursue a career as a veterinarian. Given his love for nature and animals, it seemed like the obvious path to follow. However, he couldn’t stop thinking about the mysteries of biology. To satisfy this curiosity, he instead made a plan to work in research. Suzuki has been coloring in the answers to biology questions and giving them shape ever since. 

He started his career looking at how new species form when two groups of the same species are separated from one another. For his Ph.D., He focused on how animal size changes depending on the climate. But during this time, he started drawing up some new related ideas. What if the gut microbiome could influence an animal’s size? At the time, work in the field of gut microbiomes was relatively new. Looking at the microbiome data of humans and mice, he found links to obesity and cold climates. And that was just the tip of the iceberg.

One reason Suzuki studies the microbiome is because there is still so little we know about it. The gut microbiome is much like its own ecosystem. The various microbial species that interact with each other and the host are just as complex as a forest. With so many mysteries to unravel, Suzuki feels that he will have a lot of questions to help fuel his passion.

A sketch of a Harris hawk by Taichi Suzuki. Click to expand image.

Suzuki’s love for biology extends beyond his job as a scientist. In fact, even if he hadn’t gone into research, he would have found a career where he was documenting the wonder of the natural world. A large inspiration for him has been the films by Studio Ghibli that focus on our connection to nature. He had dreams of working on the landscapes of their animated films. To this day, Suzuki does illustrations that capture the beauty he sees in the world of biology.