PhD student Annelise Del Rio is currently  conducting a field study in the American River investigating how water quality above and within salmon redds affects salmon embryo survival and physiology. This video about the project was created for a scientific film making seminar taught by Eric Sanford. Study results coming soon!

Graduate students Annelise Del Rio and Fred Nelson and undergraduate Gabi Mukai attended the annual American Fisheries Society meeting in Reno, NV this week. Annelise and Gabi presented posters on their work studying warming and hypoxia stress in salmon and Annelise gave a talk on the carryover effects of developmental exposure to warming and hypoxia in salmon. It was a great conference full of fish science!

The Todgham lab Antarctic research team B-207 is settling in at McMurdo station for another field season. Over the next few months they will be studying the physiology and behavior of juvenile Antarctic fish in response to warming and ocean acidification.  Anne is again joined by graduate student Mandy Frazier and junior specialist Andrew Naslund for their second season on the ice and also by post doc Milica Mandic who is there for her first season. To follow their research progress and ice adventures you can check the websites from Mandy (https://amandajoycefrazier.weebly.com/blog) and Andrew (https://mcmurdoantarctica.weebly.com/blog) for updates.

Anne, Milica, Mandy, and Andrew in Antarctica

Fred (L) and John (R)

Undergraduate John Amiel Flores presented his summer research at the UC Davis Educational Enrichment and Outreach Programs’ 8th annual Poster Symposium. With guidance from graduate student mentor Fred Nelson, John worked hard this summer studying differences in thermal tolerance and heat hardening between male and female mosquitofish. He conducted this research in the Todgham Lab as a part of the Biology Undergraduate Scholars Program Honors Research  program.

Todgham lab student Mandy Frazier completed her Master of Science degree in the Animal Biology Graduate Group. She studied the physiological differences between cannibal and non-cannibal burbot. Her research took her to Idaho where she worked with the Kootenai Tribe to study the burbot in their conservation hatchery. Mandy is continuing her research with the Todgham lab as she begins her PhD in the Graduate Group in Ecology this fall where she will study the physiology of Antarctic fish. She has already begun her second field season at the McMurdo research station with the Todgham lab Antarctic team. Well done Mandy!!

We are excited to have Dr. Milica Mandic join the Todgham lab as a post-doctoral scholar. Milica will be working with our Antarctic research group to study the effects of warming and ocean acidification on metabolic plasticity in juvenile Antarctic notothenioid fish. She has expertise in biochemical and whole organism physiology of fishes from intertidal sculpins to lab colonies of zebrafish.

Welcome Milica!

Todgham lab members shared our research with the public at two annual events this spring. The Picnic Day sturgeon touch tank is always a hit as guests get to interact with white sturgeon and learn about the past and current sturgeon research conducted by the UC Davis Animal Science Department and our lab.

Fred, Michaiah, and Mandy running the touch tank and answering questions about all things sturgeon.

We also volunteered at the Marguerite Montgomery Elementary School’s Science Expo day where we shared our salmon conservation research. The students enjoyed the tank of live salmon, the survival game, and seeing early fish development through displays of preserved specimens.

Ken Zillig, Mandy Frazier, Annelise Del Rio, and Anne Todgham at the Science Expo (Photo courtesy of Bruce Draper)

Ken and Mandy teaching students all about early life stage salmon

Three Todgham lab undergraduates presented posters at the 2019 UC Davis Undergraduate Research Conference. Jessica Escamilla presented her findings from testing how the centrifuge speed used in enzyme assays to study metabolism in fishes affects the quality and accuracy of the results. Gabi Mukai presented her ongoing work investigating inducible heat tolerance in juvenile Chinook salmon. Erin de Leon Sanchez presented research from her summer internship at UC Santa Barbara in the Hofmann lab where she studied thermal tolerance and gene expression in sea urchins. They all did a great job presenting!

Jessica and grad student mentor, Mandy

Gabi and grad student mentor, Annelise

Erin de Leon Sanchez

Graduate student Annelise Del Rio published her first study investigating the effects of hypoxia (low dissolved oxygen) and warming on Chinook salmon development and physiology in the journal Conservation Physiology.   She found that hypoxia reduced salmon survival and growth, but improved tolerance to acute stressors. Hypoxia and warming had significant interactions suggesting both factors are important to consider for water management strategies that target salmon survival. Her work continues to investigate the effects of warming and hypoxia on early life stage salmon.

Recent PhD graduate Brittany Davis published a study she conducted as a Delta Science Fellow in the journal Conservation Physiology . She studied the physiological responses of the native Delta Smelt and non-native Mississippi Silverside and Largemouth Bass to serial increases in salinity and temperature as single and combined stressors. She found that non-native species had consistently higher thermal tolerances than the native smelt, suggesting non-native species may do better in warm San Francisco Estuary habitats while Delta smelt populations may be negatively impacted with warming water. Congratulations Britt!

Graduate student Michaiah Leal published her second study comparing the physiology of diploid and triploid white sturgeon in the journal Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology Part A: Molecular and Integrative Physiology. She found that both ploidies have a similar stress response to an acute water reduction stressor both with and without warming, but triploid sturgeon have a reduced metabolic response to stress that may negatively affect their performance. Her work continues to investigate physiological differences in diploid and triploid sturgeon, which can both be found in commercial aquaculture facilities. Congratulations Michaiah!

Michaiah taking a blood sample from a sturgeon. Photo by Fred Conte.