I am currently based in Fiskebackskil, Sweden at the Kristineberg Marine Station.  I came here to start a new collaboration on sand gobies with Malin Celander and Ola Svensson, both in the Biological and Environmental Sciences Department at Gothenburg University.  Malin has been my host for my research leave.  Fiskebackskil sits on the Gullmarfjord, a deep water fjord that allows for an extensive collection of diverse marine species.  We are working on sand gobies, a species that comes into the coastal beach areas for breeding between May to midsummer.  They are a fascinating species as the male builds a nest, typically from shells and then courts a female to get her to lay a clutch.  The mucus they put inside the nest has sperm, provides a sticky surface for the eggs, and has anti-microbial components.  Yet, it is not contain the same protein as used by stickleback (spiggin) for their mucus.  The reproductive behaviour of the male includes nest building, courtship displays, sound production, and is followed by parental care.  There are alternative reproductive tactics in this species too.  Small males can forgo building a nest and sneak mating from a parental male.

Collecting sand gobies requires hand trawling shallow waters, as in the pictures below.  note the highly scientific equipment involved, like the pink child’s floating ring!  Fishing can be a family affair and the sorting involves having a great time at the beach with our kids.

We are completing endocrine disruption experiments on females this summer and hope to continue to work on this species for several years to come.

The 17th PRIMO meeting was recently held in Faro, Portugal and Mike Galus and Joanna Wilson attended and gave presentations.  PRIMO, or Pollutant Responses in Marine Organisms, is a biannual meeting that is one of my favourites.  The science is always exciting and it is a wonderful, smaller meeting.  Mike Galus presented his most recent research on the effects of parental exposure of zebrafish to gemfibrozil and carbamazepine to the reproductive success of their offspring.  His research results were very well received and he received one of ten student awards to help cover his costs for travel.  Mike’s award was sponsored by ICES, a global organization for ocean sustainability.  Joanna presented research being performed by Derek Alsop on the function of zebrafish CYP enzymes and the use of high throughput screening to assess CYP function.  The next PRIMO meeting will be held in 2015 in Trondheim, Norway.  I can’t wait.

I have spent the last 3 glorious days in Tjarno, Sweden at the CeMEB assembly.  CeMEB is the Center for Marine Evolutionary Biology, a center that I have recently joined here at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden.  The center is a Linnaeus Center of Excellence and I saw a lot of excellent science at the meeting.  I look forward to continuing to interact and collaborate with this group.  I presented some of the current research being done by Chris Dejong, an MSc student and bioinformatician in our group.  The talk on cytochrome P450 genes in the sand goby was well received. Congratulations Chris on some very nice work!

The meeting was held at the Sven Loven Marine Station and it is an impressive facility, one of two marine stations for GU.  They are very lucky to have such great infrastructure at the university.

The marine station at Tjarno

Fishing for sand gobies

Science discussions on the beach with John Croft and Malin Celander

Found a few sand gobies but it is early in the season

The invasive and native oyster side by side

The 5th Nordic Goby Meeting was held in Tubingen, Germany on March 6-9, 2013.  While Tubingen is clearly not in a Nordic region, the organizers clearly spend much time in the field at Nordic sites working on gobies.  This was the first time I had attended this meeting and it was really interesting.  Researchers were primarily from Norway, Finland or Sweden but there was more than one German lab and one from Switzerland present.  People were working on sand, common, two spotted or round gobies and the Baltic was clearly the region where most research is focused.

The Baltic Sea is an incredibly interesting body of water.  The salinity differences between the opening of the Baltic at the North Sea and the tip of the Baltic is very large; from 35 to less than 6-8 parts per thousand.  This large salinity gradient forms roughly west to east and the salinity gradient is paralleled by genetic gradients in several species.  You can read more about the Baltic as a test bed for the evolutionary consequences of environmental perturbations through CeMEB, the Centre for Marine Evolutionary Biology, of which I am now a member.  I will be working at the western end of the Baltic, in the Gullmar Fjord, this summer studying sand gobies so this trip gave me a great introduction into the work focusing on this and other gobies in the region.

Interestingly, there were several groups working on the invasive round goby at several sites.  The research in North America and Europe can sometimes move in strangely parallel but independent paths.  Hopefully, having a North American present will help to introduce and connect some of the work going on here with my colleagues in Canada.  There were clearly strong overlapping interests between researchers at this meeting and work ongoing in Canada.

The location was beautiful.  Tubingen is much farther south and thus, much warmer, than Gothenburg, Sweden where I am for my sabbatical.  We had warm, sunny weather that was the best of spring weather and the crocus’ were already in bloom.  Contrast that to the snow we had in Gothenburg this week; spring has not come this far north yet.

The Department of Biology in the Faculty of Science at McMaster University invites qualified candidates to apply for a one-year Post-Doctoral Fellowship. Dr. Joanna Wilson is seeking up to two post-doctoral fellows to join a funded Mitacs Accelerate Cluster. Each post-doctoral fellow will be expected to develop a research program to determine potential environmental impacts of thermal and other emissions of nuclear power generation.

The Accelerate Cluster will generate new knowledge regarding the role and effects of industrial emissions (thermal and/or radiological) on aquatic biota. The post-doctoral fellows will interact with university and industrial scientists to develop important baseline data, including effects of embryonic thermal exposure on juvenile fish. The baseline data will feed into the larger focus of the Accelerate Cluster, particularly with respect to determination of effects of combined sub-acute stressors.

Specific scientific objectives of the Accelerate Cluster program include (1) determination of whether thermal embryonic exposure can affect the juvenile life-stage of Lake Whitefish, and (2) determination of whether industrial partner operations are having ecological impacts as predicted during previous environmental assessments.

Each fellowship is for one year, with possibility of renewal for a second year. Annual stipend is $42,000 plus benefits.

Qualifications: Ph.D. in Biology or related field. Applicant must be eligible to receive Mitacs internship funding.

Application Procedure: Please send CVs and inquiries to Dr. Joanna Wilson (joanna.wilson@mcmaster.ca).