Akito Y. Kawahara Last updated June 19, 2025 Career Kawahara's research interests are insect evolution, predator-prey interactions, and genetics. He has published over 175 peer-reviewed scientific papers, and has received many national and international awards. Among his largest contributions are papers on the evolution of butterflies and moths. [ 3] [ 4] [ 5] He also conducts research on ultrasound production and hearing in moths and echolocation in bats, which he works on with Dr. Jesse Barber. [ 6] [ 7] [ 8] [ 9] He has also published numerous papers on the importance of insects as models for nature education, including a highly popular article on the action items that every individual can do to help global insect declines. [ 10]
Personal life Kawahara was born in New York City, United States. He is the son of modern Contemporary Artist, On Kawara. As a child, he traveled between New York and Tokyo annually, attending two schools simultaneously, a schooling called "Taiheiyou-tsugaku" (Trans-Pacific Commute). [ 15] He resides in Florida and New York, and has two children.
Selected publications Barber, Jesse R.; Kawahara, Akito Y. (23 August 2013). "Hawkmoths produce anti-bat ultrasound" . Biology Letters . 9 (4): 20130161. doi :10.1098/rsbl.2013.0161 . PMC 3730625 . PMID 23825084 . Barber, Jesse R.; Leavell, Brian C.; Keener, Adam L.; Breinholt, Jesse W.; Chadwell, Brad A.; McClure, Christopher J. W.; Hill, Geena M.; Kawahara, Akito Y. (3 March 2015). "Moth tails divert bat attack: Evolution of acoustic deflection" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 112 (9): 2812– 2816. Bibcode :2015PNAS..112.2812B . doi : 10.1073/pnas.1421926112 . PMC 4352808 . PMID 25730869 . Breinholt, Jesse W.; Earl, Chandra; Lemmon, Alan R.; Lemmon, Emily Moriarty; Xiao, Lei; Kawahara, Akito Y. (1 January 2018). "Resolving Relationships among the Megadiverse Butterflies and Moths with a Novel Pipeline for Anchored Phylogenomics" . Systematic Biology . 67 (1): 78– 93. doi : 10.1093/sysbio/syx048 . PMID 28472519 . S2CID 3658506 . Espeland, Marianne; Breinholt, Jesse; Willmott, Keith R.; Warren, Andrew D.; Vila, Roger; Toussaint, Emmanuel F.A.; Maunsell, Sarah C.; Aduse-Poku, Kwaku; Talavera, Gerard; Eastwood, Rod; Jarzyna, Marta A.; Guralnick, Robert; Lohman, David J.; Pierce, Naomi E.; Kawahara, Akito Y. (March 2018). "A Comprehensive and Dated Phylogenomic Analysis of Butterflies" . Current Biology . 28 (5): 770–778.e5. doi : 10.1016/j.cub.2018.01.061 . hdl : 10072/384394 . PMID 29456146 . S2CID 3346155 . Kawahara, Akito Y.; Plotkin, David; Espeland, Marianne; Meusemann, Karen; Toussaint, Emmanuel F. A.; Donath, Alexander; Gimnich, France; Frandsen, Paul B.; Zwick, Andreas; Reis, Mario dos; Barber, Jesse R.; Peters, Ralph S.; Liu, Shanlin; Zhou, Xin; Mayer, Christoph; Podsiadlowski, Lars; Storer, Caroline; Yack, Jayne E.; Misof, Bernhard; Breinholt, Jesse W. (5 November 2019). "Phylogenomics reveals the evolutionary timing and pattern of butterflies and moths" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 116 (45): 22657– 22663. Bibcode :2019PNAS..11622657K . doi : 10.1073/pnas.1907847116 . PMC 6842621 . PMID 31636187 . Kawahara, Akito Y.; Reeves, Lawrence E.; Barber, Jesse R.; Black, Scott H. (12 January 2021). "Opinion: Eight simple actions that individuals can take to save insects from global declines" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 118 (2): e2002547117. Bibcode :2021PNAS..11820025K . doi : 10.1073/pnas.2002547117 . PMC 7812750 . PMID 33431563 . Kawahara, Akito Y.; Barber, Jesse R. (19 May 2015). "Tempo and mode of antibat ultrasound production and sonar jamming in the diverse hawkmoth radiation" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 112 (20): 6407– 6412. Bibcode :2015PNAS..112.6407K . doi : 10.1073/pnas.1416679112 . PMC 4443353 . PMID 25941377 . Kawahara, Akito Y.; Breinholt, Jesse W. (7 August 2014). "Phylogenomics provides strong evidence for relationships of butterflies and moths" . Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences . 281 (1788): 20140970. doi :10.1098/rspb.2014.0970 . PMC 4083801 . PMID 24966318 . Barber, J.R.; Plotkin, D.; Rubin, J.J.; Homziak, N.; Leavell, B.C.; Houlihan, P.; Miner, K.; Breinholt, J.W.; Quirk-Royal, B.; Padron, S.; Nunez, M.; Kawahara, A.Y. (2022). "Anti-bat ultrasound production in moths is globally and phylogenetically widespread" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 119 (25): e2117485119. doi :10.1073/pnas.2117485119 . PMC 9231501 . Kawahara, A.Y.; Storer, C.; Carvalho, A.P.S.; Plotkin, D.M. (2023). "A comprehensive phylogeny of butterflies reveals their evolutionary history, ancestral hosts and biogeographic origins" . Nature Ecology and Evolution . 7 : 903– 913. References ↑ "Florida Museum Faculty Spotlight" . ↑ "Akito Kawahara named director of McGuire Center for Lepidoptera and Biodiversity" . ↑ "Butterflies and plants evolved in sync, but moth 'ears' predated bats" . 21 October 2019. ↑ Wade, Nicholas (21 October 2019). "How the Butterfly Discovered Daylight" . The New York Times . ↑ "Scientists Trace Butterfly and Moth Evolutionary History" . 1 August 2014. ↑ "The Evolution of Hawkmoths' Sonar Jamming" . 13 May 2015. ↑ "Moths Vibrate Genitals to Scare Bats" . 8 July 2013. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. ↑ Quenqua, Douglas (16 February 2015). "Moth Tails Divert Bats" . The New York Times . ↑ Yong, Ed (October 21, 2019). "A Textbook Evolutionary Story About Moths and Bats Is Wrong" . The Atlantic . ↑ Kawahara, Akito Y.; Reeves, Lawrence E.; Barber, Jesse R.; Black, Scott H. (12 January 2021). "Opinion: Eight simple actions that individuals can take to save insects from global declines" . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences . 118 (2): e2002547117. Bibcode :2021PNAS..11820025K . doi : 10.1073/pnas.2002547117 . PMC 7812750 . PMID 33431563 . [ non-primary source needed ] ↑ "PBS American Spring Live" . PBS . ↑ "Sex, Lies and Butterflies" . PBS . 2 Mar 2018. ↑ "Where Did Butterflies Come From? This Scientist Is On the Case | Smithsonian" . Mar 2024. ↑ "A sweeping new study sheds light on butterflies' origins : NPR" . 16 May 2023. ↑ Magazine, Smithsonian; Grant, Richard. "Where Did Butterflies Come From? This Scientist Is On the Case" . Smithsonian Magazine . External links
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