RESEARCH
THERMAL ECOLOGY
The general goal of our thermal ecology projects is to determine how water temperature influences the vital rates (e.g. reproduction, survival) and behaviour (e.g. activity, migration) of freshwater fishes.
Analysing thermal tolerance data: the rTFT R package
Thermal tolerance is usually reported as a summary of an assay, such as the critical thermal maximum (CTmax) of a ramping trial, and that summary depends on how the assay was run. rTFT, an R package developed in the lab, fits Bayesian hazard models to the times at which individuals fail during static or ramping assays, and derives CTmax, thermal death time curves and thermal tolerance landscapes from the fitted model with their uncertainty. It can also predict survival along a record of stream temperature.
Package website · Getting started · Source code · How to cite
Behavioural thermoregulation by sockeye salmon
This project combines thermal preference trial in the lab and telemetry and data logging in the field to determine how physiological condition influences behavioural thermoregulation by adult migrating sockeye salmon.
Spatio-temporal patterns of variability in water temperature
This project is quantifying the spatio-temporal variability in water temperature in the Fraser River watersheds to determine the potential consequences of future changes in thermal variability for freshwater fishes.
THE EFFECTS OF THERMAL VARIABILITY ON SURVIVAL OF MIGRATING FISH
This project is using existing water temperature and radio-telemetry data to investigate how variability in thermal experience affects the survival of adult migrating Fraser River sockeye salmon from populations exhibiting different thermal tolerances.
