Todgham Lab

This September Hollis attended the Pacific Coast Shellfish Growers Association and National Shellfish Growers Association Conference in Seaside, Oregon. During this conference, she was awarded the Kenneth K. Chew Student Research Grant for her third chapter which experimentally tests whether a preliminary air exposure primes hatchery produced Pacific oysters for the transition from the subtidal hatchery environment to the intertidal grow-out farm by reducing energy budget disruption. Go Hollis!

Meet Su!

Su hails from Kansas City, Missouri. Go Chiefs! She graduated this June with a B.S. in Marine and Coastal Sciences with a focus on Marine Ecology and Organismal Biology. Su has been enjoying pursuing her interests and learning possible avenues for her future career as a marine scientist. Su’s favorite memory was “visiting Coleman National Hatchery and making new friends”. When Su isn’t at the microtome, she can be found painting with Savannah or tide-pooling with her friends! 

Meet Savannah!

Growing up in San Diego, Savannah has always had a passion for protecting the marine environment and even raised $3,000 for Birch Aquarium. She is a rising senior studying Marine and Coastal Sciences with a focus on Ocean and Earth Systems. Savannah has loved working with the Todgham Lab learning “incredible lab skills and making life-long friends”. When Savannah isn’t prepping tissues, her favorite lab task, she can be found painting and exploring with friends!

As a Sustainable Oceans NSF Research Trainee, PhD student Hollis Jones was able to spend her first summer interning with Hog Island Oyster Co., a California oyster farm dedicated to developing sustainable aquaculture techniques. She spent 10 weeks immersed in everything from spawning broodstock at their hatchery on Humboldt Bay to unloading shipments of shellfish from other farms for retail at one of their five restaurants. She split her summer between the farm in Tomales Bay, and the hatchery and nursery in Humboldt Bay. This internship shaped her dissertation and she plans to continue to partner with Hog Island to work towards making the commercial oyster industry more resilient to climate change. Great work Hollis!

Out on Tomales Bay surveying oysters for mortality. Photo credit: Maxwell Rintoul

Checking oyster baskets in Tomales Bay during low tide. Photo credit: Remy Hale

Graduate student Annelise Del Rio completed her PhD last September with an engaging exit seminar via Zoom. During her time in the lab, Annelise ran some exciting lab and field multi-stressor studies on early life stages of Chinook Salmon, was a fantastic mentor to several undergraduate students, prioritised outreach, and published several publications. After completion of her PhD, Annelise worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the Fangue lab and has recently just started her new position as a Salmon Scientist for the Puget Sound Partnership. Annelise will be greatly missed in the lab, but we wish her the best of luck in her new position and excited to see what she accomplishes in the future. Congratulations Annelise!

Undergraduate Gabi Mukai graduated this spring with her BS in Animal Science. Gabi joined the lab during her first year at UCD and was an active undergrad researcher in our lab for the past 4 years. Gabi worked on many different research projects during her time in the lab and conducted a few studies on inducible stress tolerance in juvenile Chinook salmon herself. Her research experience culminated in her senior honor’s thesis on inducible hypoxia tolerance in salmon fry which was supported by the Provost’s Undergraduate Fellowship .  We will miss Gabi in the lab, but wish her the best as she begins her PhD at the University of Hawaii Manoa this fall!

Virtual Todgham lab congratulations for Gabi due to coronavirus.

Graduate student Michaiah Leal completed her PhD this spring and gave an excellent exit seminar via Zoom last week. In her five years in the lab Michaiah has led four studies on the physiological differences between triploid and diploid white sturgeon. During that time she developed new laboratory protocols for studying cellular stress, mentored undergraduates and fellow graduate students, collaborated on additional sturgeon projects, taught numerous classes as a teaching assistant, and developed an impressive publication record. Michaiah will be missed in the lab, but we wish the best of luck to the future Professor Leal. Congratulations Michaiah!

We are excited to have Dr. Christina Pasparakis join the lab as a post doctoral scholar. Christina will be working with delta and longfin smelt to understand how they are affected by turbidity and temperature. She has expertise in stress physiology, intertidal invertebrates,  and early life stage fishes. She completed her master’s degree with Anne at San Francisco State and we are excited to have her back!

Two undergraduates from the Todgham lab presented at the 2020 UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference. This year the conference was held online in a virtual format due to the current coronavirus situation. Gabi Mukai presented her senior thesis research on juvenile Chinook salmon. She studied the effects of a preliminary mild heat or hypoxic stressor on hypoxia tolerance after fish recovered from the mild stressor for different amounts of time. John Amiel Flores presented his summer research project studying differences in thermal tolerance and heat hardening ability between male and female mosquitofish. Both students created excellent video recordings of their presentations!

Graduate student Mandy Frazier published her Master’s thesis studying differences in metabolic performance between cannibal and non-cannibal burbot. She conducted this collaborative study with the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho Twin Rivers Hatchery in Moyie Springs, Idaho. She found that cannibal burbot rely more on carbohydrate metabolism, while non-cannibal burbot rely on lipid metabolism more. These performance differences provide valuable insight to managers of conservation hatcheries since most hatcheries select against cannibalism in order to maximize fish production. Read more about this study in the journal Conservation Physiology here or check out our publications page. Congratulations Mandy!

Our own Dr. Anne Todgham was named a 2019-2020 Chancellor’s Fellow. She is one of 12 UC Davis faculty chosen this year from diverse fields of study across the university.  The Chancellor’s Fellows program identifies exceptional early career faculty members and Anne was recognized for her strong research accomplishments focusing on the physiology of marine and aquatic organisms from California to Antarctica. In addition to funds provided to support her research, she will hold this title for five years. Congratulations Anne!