Will Bugg

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 🐟🐠🧪

My home department (Integrative Biology, UC Berkeley) is searching for an assistant professor in ecology—please distribute widely! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF05489

in the phase of realizing getting grants means actually having to do what’s in the grant what do you mean i can’t just play with sturgeon in the field?? plz send help 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🦑🐟🌐 (anyway here’s a pic of the cutest baby sturgeon ever)

happy #sturgeonsaturday on sunday! we’re so back baby! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌐🌎🦑🐟 in addition to the population stressor sampling I’ve been doing we’re adding acoustic telemetry to track where sturgeon are and how they are doing at the same time this will let us analyze stress patterns and habitat use together 🫡

happy #sturgeonsaturday !! In honor of my field season starting tomorrow please enjoy this beautiful and chaotic sturgeon release from last season lmk if there is something yall wanna see or ask about sturgeon while we get ready for our first day on the river this year!! 🌐🌎🧪👩🏻‍🔬🐟🦑

Atlantic Salmon post-smolt migration from Canadian rivers to the Labrador Sea: routes, timing, and influence of sea surface temperature. Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences. 83: 1-31. doi.org/10.1139/cjfa...

GARgantuan thank you to @governorwalz.mn.gov for recognizing the value of our native fishes! FINtastic meeting him AND getting getting a photoGARph! #NativeFishDay

Enthusiasm from @governorwalz.mn.gov to hold the gar was real! Also appreciate him getting pics with the NEXT generation of native fish conservationists! Thanks again to Minnesotans and folks everywhere for their support of native fish! #NativeFishDay

New research detailing high throughput sturgeon molecular tools developed by @biologyhossein.bsky.social is now live! Here we developed and tested assays across sturgeon species to evaluate impacts across a variety of pathways induced by thermal stress 🧪🌎🌐🐟 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

Our new paper is out! We developed a multispecies OpenArray™ chip to study cellular stress response in Acipenser species. The chip was used to measure the effects of acute thermal stress on Atlantic, lake, and shortnose sturgeon. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10....

I'll add only that if you're not already aware, Dr. @wbuggiii.bsky.social has been working with this lab. I'm not affiliated nor a genomics expert but the work they do is the *keystone* to resource management, restoration (that is me), & conservation per founder & now emeritus lead Dr. Kristi Miller

super super important read!! DFO cuts are directly gutting pacific salmon research and conservation by cutting a CRUCIAL lab & associated members responsible for identifying the stressors and pathogens leading to population decline!!! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌐🌎

Ongoing DFO cuts to the Genomics Program and across the organization further compromise the capacity to conduct critical research evaluating the impacts of cumulative stressors and pathogens on salmon survival and to aid in the conservation of imperiled stocks 🧪🌎🌐🦑🐟 thetyee.ca/News/2026/04...

New Perspective paper is out! We reviewed how eDNA is currently used for biodiversity monitoring in Southeast Asia and developed recommendations to strengthen its regional application. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Our paper is out, focusing on design, validation, and implementation considerations for species-targeted eRNA assays to detect presence and physiological state! Some new ideas to ponder. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

What happens *after* enemy release? In a new paper, we present 7 years of infection & immune trait dynamics in 16 lake populations of stickleback. www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/... This is definitely the longest-scale study I've done in my career, I'm very excited to see it out. 1/6

Migratory freshwater fish are in steep decline due to pressures along their paths, including dams, altered flows, habitat degradation, pollution and unsustainable fishing. Restoring rivers and habitats cannot wait. Read the #CMSFreshwaterFishes report: www.cms.int/publication/...

Less dams, more fish! 🐟🏞️ Restoring rivers and habitats cannot wait.

i made a sparkly moon mug in honor of the incredible scientific feat NASA astronauts are undertaking today 🌕 🌙💫 🧪🌎🌐👩🏻‍🔬 #nasa #moon #pottery

happy #sturgeonsaturday (on sunday)! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌐🦑🌎 did you know that sturgeon rely heavily on scent & feel to find food rather than eyesight? in the photo you can see the barbels (like whiskers) & the 2 nostrils - which are basically the same size as the eye! these strong sniffers are quite impressive 👃

i mixed my two most frequent pastimes: worrying & pottery, with my love for the sea 🫶🏼 i always need to fidget with things, these are a sensory dream with a smooth & rougher side and i love them sm :) if this resonates with you the link is below💫🌞🌀 www.madisonearhart.com/pottery-coll...

happy #sturgeonsaturday ! this is the time of year that sturgeon wake up from their overwintering cuddling and move around in search of food! in the Fraser River, BC this usually aligns with the eulachon spawning run, a crucial sturgeon food source, full of fat after a long winter 🍽️ 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐🦑🐟

wanna follow a suuuper cool group of people leading a variety of conservation efforts??? look no further!!! @libererofellows.bsky.social starter pack is here 🤩 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🦑🐟🌐🌎

hiiiiiiiiii it’s me!!! i am so thrilled to announce i’m now a liber ero fellow!!! 🫶🏼💫🥰 so excited to start this journey and continue working in white sturgeon conservation i’ll be identifying population stressors that could be leading to mortalities and declines across british columbia 👩🏻‍🔬🧪🌐🌎🦑🐟

We are pleased to announce the 2026 Liber Ero Fellows! liberero.ca/meet-the-fel...

new paper and illustrations 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐 We asked are embryos understudied in conservation physiology? Turns out, despite the increasing recognition of the ecological importance & sensitivity of embryos, we found no evidence that embryo research has gained traction over the past 10yrs paper link below👇🏼

Ooooh. Cool new paper on origins of life. A simple 45-nucleotide RNA molecule that can perfectly copy itself. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

hiiii it’s me!! as a pretty burnt out scientist but i’ve found joy again in making ceramics :) i’m working on my first small batch drop that will be inspired by my love of color and the natural world if you have instagram and want to be friends find me @madart_ceramics 👩🏻‍🔬🧪🌎🍒🫐🐚💫

i’ve been dabbling in pottery to keep some portion of my sanity together and turns out i super love it and want to make it my whole life 💫🥲 is this the scientist to artist pipeline? 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎 here are some to go cups i made recently! hand painted fruits on speckled clay #pottery #ceramics #handmade

happy #sturgeonsaturday yall 🧪👩🏻‍🔬 🌎 Did ya know that during winter sturgeon do a thing i call cuddle puddle? they find a deep hole to overwinter in & hang out cuddle puddling until spring! we are working to identify & protect these areas now support the sturgies, get a sticker: tinyurl.com/2fjnxy7w

ice continues to kidnap, torture, and murder human beings across the US and right now, especially in Minneapolis proceeds from this sticker to mutual aid funds in MN abolish ice 👩🏻‍🔬🧪🌎🦑 🐟 www.madisonearhart.com/product-page...

What’s happening on the Bathurst calving grounds? We found strong spatiotemporal overlap between grizzlies and caribou during calving, highlighting potential risk during this sensitive period. Deeply grateful to the collaborators who made this work possible! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

yooo everyone!! will did a super cool study with big implications for salmon!! He was able to create biomarkers using teeny tiny pieces of gills (non lethal) to identify if a salmon is food limited or not this means they can go in the wild and determine if, when and where salmon are starving 🧪🌎👩🏻‍🔬

New research out in @conphysjournal.bsky.social We use RNA sequencing to identify gill markers for food deprivation in Chinook salmon. academic.oup.com/conphys/arti... We will deploy these markers with panels for other stressors and pathogens to evaluate impacts on survival of wild salmon

PSF scientists, led by @wbuggiii.bsky.social, recently published a research breakthrough on identifying food deprivation in wild salmon. Learn more: academic.oup.com/conphys/arti...

newwwww illustration below :) check out this sturgeon paper!!!

sometimes I do field work in the most gorgeous water (Harrison river, BC) and you can see the sturgeon swim away forever 🥹 this is a nice close up of the scutes that cover sturgeon for protection, they have several rows of these bony plates that can be really sharp! #sturgeonsaturday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

did you know we had ~80 huge sturgeon die this year (that we know of) in 2 BC rivers? These deaths occurred during the summer when the sockeye salmon were returning sturgeon eat many salmon at once, and this may be overloading their metabolic capacity during hot summers 😱 #sturgeonsaturday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

Wildlife deserves more than minimum viable populations. Conservation should aim for ecosystems where species can thrive, not just survive. 💥🦬🌲 👉 Read more:

releasing these huuuuge sturgeon and watching them swim away is the best part of my job 🫶🏼 another week in the field complete, and one step closer to finding out what is harming these ancient fish 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐🦑 #sturgeonsaturday

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!! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬 🐠 🌎 🌐👇🏼

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/...

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! 🐟

#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 🥵

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🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

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 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🐟🌎🌐

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

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...