Will Bugg
@wbuggiii.bsky.social
2.3K followers 800 following 45 posts
Liber Ero Fellow PhD from the University of Manitoba. Postdoc with UBC and PSF. Conservation and physiological responses to environmental stressors. From NC -> AL -> MB -> BC.
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wbuggiii.bsky.social
Hi everyone! I’m a postdoc with the University of British Columbia and the Pacific Salmon Foundation and my research focuses on the impacts of cumulative stressors on the early marine survival of Pacific Salmon 🐟🐠🧪
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
climate change is causing larger temperature variations BUT we know very little about how variable temperatures impact sensitive, developing fish

in this new study with @tblanchard.bsky.social & @trishschulte.bsky.social we found surprising impacts during development and after hatch!!

🧪👩🏻‍🔬 🐠 🌎 🌐👇🏼
jexpbiol.bsky.social
Atlantic killifish are robust little fish, but now @tblanchard.bsky.social & co reveal that fluctuating temperatures while the embryos are developing in the egg can have beneficial and damaging consequences

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
A photo of two Atlantic killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) embryos. Photo credit: Tessa Blanchard
Reposted by Will Bugg
jexpbiol.bsky.social
Atlantic killifish are robust little fish, but now @tblanchard.bsky.social & co reveal that fluctuating temperatures while the embryos are developing in the egg can have beneficial and damaging consequences

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
A photo of two Atlantic killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) embryos. Photo credit: Tessa Blanchard
Reposted by Will Bugg
tblanchard.bsky.social
Excited to share another paper from work I did during my PhD with @trishschulte.bsky.social and @madisonearhart.bsky.social. We looked at how fish embryos respond differently to constant and fluctuating temperatures! 🐟
jexpbiol.bsky.social
Atlantic killifish are robust little fish, but now @tblanchard.bsky.social & co reveal that fluctuating temperatures while the embryos are developing in the egg can have beneficial and damaging consequences

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...
A photo of two Atlantic killifish (Fundulus heteroclitus) embryos. Photo credit: Tessa Blanchard
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
#sturgeonsaturday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

the last 2 years i’ve been investigating why these giant fish are dying across BC

and i’ve started to identify the stressors that could be driving mortality!!

if you want to learn more, check out this video: tinyurl.com/4m4xxrkh

tldr; it’s getting hot out here yall 🥵
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
in the field for #sturgeonsaturday

ive spent the last 2 yrs investigating what is killing BC white sturgeon

unfortunately, these deaths continue & we’ve had over 50 adult sturgeon die in the fraser river in the last ~6 weeks

every fish i sample is another step closer to solving the mystery🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
hiiiii i’ve been mia for a bit but im back with looooots of field work photos - we’re doing some really cool sturgeon science this summer!!

here i am, in my element holding my fave creature, trying to save the dinosaurs one sturgie at a time 🫶🏼

#sturgeonsaturday everyday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🐟🌎🌐
madison holding a sturgeon prior to release on a boat in the fraser river
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
out of pure rage for the obliteration of science funding i made a sticker

cuts are disproportionately impacting EC scientists & women~particularly Black women and women of color

25% of proceeds will go to @standupforscience.bsky.social to keep fighting! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎

plz share widely
tinyurl.com/5n7kjbwt
a sticker illustrating 3 women wearing an NSF lab coat, a NASA shirt, and NIH scrubs with the phrase girls just wanna have funds underneath. a portion of proceeds from this sticker will go directly to stand up for science to support funding initiatives  the same sticker in the wild on my very dented water bottle with the ocean in the background
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
i was recently interviewed by @csz-sczofficial.bsky.social about my phd, science, art, really all things 👩🏻‍🔬🧪🐠🌎

still over the moon i got this award, sometimes i am still reminding myself that i did a phd 🥲

check it out! 👇🏼

blog.csz-scz.ca/2025/06/30/s...
a screenshot of the interview page showing a picture of madison and a blurb describing the csz outstanding thesis award
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
the horrors persist, but so do closeups of baby sturgeon

everyone say hi to the cutest fish alive!!

#sturgeonsaturday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐
a close up of a baby sturgeon, in water, held in a yellow sling
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
everyone! look at this baby sturgeon!

literally the cutest creature to ever exist but unfortunately we have less and less of them in BC

with juvenile recruitment issues it’s always so awesome to find lil untagged bbs - this trip 5/14 of our sturgeon were untagged!

#sturgeonsaturday everyday🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐
madison standing on a boat - holding a 2-3 year old white sturgeon about 16 inches long prior to release
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
we’re so back baby!!

an excellent start to the sturgeon field season today :)

here’s a 7ft sturgeon being released

#sturgeonsaturday everyday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐🦑
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
have yall ever seen a 1day old sturgeon?? right out of the egg?

WELL NOW YOU HAVE

barely any eyes, no gills, just vibes & yes that tube is their beating heart 💓

(microscope vid so plz forgive the lighting)

#sturgeonsaturday everyday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎

(p.s. get some sturgie stickers tinyurl.com/3dd65s4p)
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
it’s #sturgeonsaturday👩🏻‍🔬🌎🧪🌐

did you know there are 8 sturgeon species in N. America?

spread across the continent, they are found in rivers, estuaries & the sea

i made stickers for each sturgie that lives here, so you can always have your fave fish with you

www.madisonearhart.com/category/sti...
madison standing in the fraser river smiling while holding a white sturgeon in a water filled sling prior to release a photo of sticker illustrations of all 8 species of sturgeon found in north america
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
its #sturgeonsaturday!

did you know that some sturgeon make very long spawning migrations? Similar to salmon, some species of sturgeon migrate hundreds of miles from the sea to rivers to spawn

after navigating a long journey once they are in freshwater they will release millions of eggs! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐
Reposted by Will Bugg
slavov-n.bsky.social
An intuitive visualization of the regulatory layers influencing the stoichiometry of a protein complex.

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
first market of the summer means lilacs!! 🌞
madison holding a bouquet of lilacs
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
it’s #sturgeonsaturday 🧪🌎👩🏻‍🔬🎨

today i want to highlight the illustrations ive made for sturgie sci comm & publications

im super passionate about visual storytelling - below is my portfolio, check it out :)

need help with a graphical abstract? exp design? a talk? hit me up!

madisonearhart.com
an illustration of north america surrounded by the sturgeon species that live here. each sturgeon has a colored blob beneath that is associated with dots on the map. the size of the dots on the map correspond to the area a study was done and the amount of studies done in that population a salmon lifecycle illustration from embryos to spawning adults an illustration of a larval to juvenile sturgeon transition and all the RNA seq go terms that changed in the gill during development an experimental design figure illustrating sturgeon and their treatments in the middle with dates of sampling on the left side and what was sampled on the right side
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
yesterday i was given an award for the outstanding phd thesis of the year from @csz-sczofficial.bsky.social

i gave a talk about my phd, full of science & art

i focused on how fish cope with environmental change & the importance of art in science 🧪🌎👩🏻‍🔬🌐🎨

here is the full talk: tinyurl.com/257jkbmh
madison standing in front of the final slide of her talk showing her art logo and contact information the first slide from the talk showing an illustration of an aquatic environment and a statement that says “i weave together basic and applied science to inform conservation under climate change” madison standing in front of a slide describing an F0 - F2 rainbow trout generational study
Reposted by Will Bugg
mkoenalonso.bsky.social
This is a fascinating study on fishing altering fish migratory patterns.

It’s management implications are important.

I’ve argued that Limit Reference Points also need to consider the ecological role of the fished stock.

This is an example of why that matters.

www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Herring spawned poleward following fishery-induced collective memory loss - Nature
A critically low abundance of older herring due to age-selective fisheries resulted in an approximately 800-km poleward shift in main spawning.
www.nature.com
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
#sturgeonsaturday! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

not only are the sturgeon in the Nechako river facing no babies, the last few years there have been unexplained mortality events in the large adults 😩 (typically at the end of summer)

Im investigating what may be causing these mortalities and the role of climate warming 🧐
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
here’s the paper that investigated the otter predation on lil sturgies - when going out to find tags researchers were lead to otter latrines, where they had pooped out sturgeon tags after eating them 😩

cdnsciencepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
cdnsciencepub.com
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
#sturgeonsaturday all week! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌐🌎

because there are no larvae surviving in the Nechako river, the mandated hatchery releases 2 y.o. sturgeon to increase the population

it took trial & error in deciding what size to release sturgeon, turns out small sturgeon are otter snacks 🦦

3 y.o. sturgie 👇🏼
Reposted by Will Bugg
erictopol.bsky.social
New @science.org
Exposomics. We're not doing nearly enough to understand and mitigate our toxic environmental exposures. A very insightful perspective
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...
Reposted by Will Bugg
madisonearhart.bsky.social
happy #earthday!

we’re gonna do #sturgeonsaturday everyday this week!

I’m in northern BC on the Nechako river, with a super endangered population of white sturgeon with no babies seen in 70 years! 😭

I’m here to assess stressors in this population while we fish for hatchery broodstock 🧪🌎🌐👩🏻‍🔬