Graham Raby

The PDF of the News article, Announcing the 2025 Journal of Experimental Biology Outstanding Paper Prize shortlist and winner, by Kathryn Knight. The publishing information at the top states: © 2026. Published by The Company of Biologists | Journal of Experimental Biology (2026) 229, jeb252265. doi:10.1242/jeb.252265. The first sentence of the article says, 'If you're a fan of comparative physiology, clicking on a new issue of Journal of Experimental Biology can feel like being let loose in an opulent store of treats'. The first three shortlisted articles are presented in a box at the top of the second column of text.

Congratulations to all of the remarkable ECRs whose research has been recognised in the 2025 JEB Outstanding Paper Prize shortlist

Find out about each of the shortlisted papers and their outstanding ECR authors

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

A map showing the probability of movement for terrestrial animals across Canada and the USA.

Now published: Landscape connectivity across Canada and the USA. A seamless, high resolution connectivity map across both countries. 🧪🌎 Open access in Facets, including open data www.facetsjournal.com/doi/full/10....

Blog post about our new paper in @amfisheriessoc.bsky.social TAFS

How useful is underwater video as a fisheries assessment tool in temperate freshwater ecosystems? ABSTRACTObjective. Remote underwater video (RUV) is a noninvasive survey technique that has long been used in marine ecosystems and is now gaining interest

How useful is underwater video as a fisheries assessment tool in temperate freshwater ecosystems?, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society, 2025;, vnaf057, doi.org/10.1093/tafa...

X-ray image of a stickleback fish skeleton highlighting three decades of research in the Canadian Journal of Zoology.

We are inviting submissions for a collection celebrating 30 years of stickleback research from morphology and molecular biology to ecosystem science.

For more info 🐟▶️ https://ow.ly/ygsX50Xrae2

#Stickleback #Evolution #Zoology

Really enjoyed the 35th Rice Lake Comparative Physiology & Biochemistry Workshop this weekend. Big shout-out to @graham-raby.bsky.social lab members for sharing some great science.

Scientists Testing New Technology to Pinpoint When Fish Become Food Canada’s top doctoral-level fisheries researcher is uncovering fish interactions with predators and their environment

A short feature from @trentuniversity.bsky.social on our research using @innovasea.com predation-sensing telemetry tags to study fish ecology!

www.trentu.ca/news/story/2...

Picked up a new field vehicle for our lab this week (a used Toyota Sienna), and we've decided to name it the Burbot Buggy.

Working on draft an image to put on the keychain...

On behalf of all the Editors at #ConPhys we would like to say a big THANK YOU to everyone who has reviewed for us in 2025. Your contributions are truly appreciated.

Cover of Contaminants, Environment, and Society journal showing a wetland with trees and a blue sky. Announcement of submissions opening.

A home for contaminants research is here! Contaminants, Environment, and Society publishes insights that link science, community, and policy. Check out the scope and submit your research ▶️ https://ow.ly/czCj50Xuof8

#PollutionResearch #OpenForSubmissions #Microplastics

Graham Scott (left) is joining the team of JEB Monitoring Editors and Pat Wright (right) is stepping down as a JEB Editor.

JEB is excited to welcome a new Editor, Graham Scott from McMaster University, but we are also sad to be saying goodbye to Pat Wright, who has been a longstanding member of the team & was Deputy Editor-in-Chief from 2020 with responsibility for ECRs

journals.biologists.com/jeb/article/...

How useful is underwater video as a fisheries assessment tool in temperate freshwater ecosystems? ABSTRACTObjective. Remote underwater video (RUV) is a noninvasive survey technique that has long been used in marine ecosystems and is now gaining interest

How useful is underwater video as a fisheries assessment tool in freshwater?

@jacobbowman.bsky.social asked this question for his honours thesis, by comparing video against other ways of counting fish.

Editor's Choice in TAFS:
academic.oup.com/tafs/advance...

A photo of two figures in waders, walking through a swamp in beautiful sunny weather next to green, long grasses. The text reads Pollution, People, and Place: Community-Driven Investigations into Environmental Contaminants. Jan 13, 7:30 pm, Upstairs at The Publican. 294 Charlotte St. Dr. Mary-Claire Buell. School of the Environment and Department of Forensic Science, Trent University.

New Year's coming, and with it more great conservation talks! This January's it'll be Trent's own Dr. Mary-Claire Buell, on bringing community + environmental forensics together in investigations of pollution. Should be great!

Effects of surgical implantation of electronic tags in fishes: a review and meta-analysis - Reviews in Fish Biology and Fisheries Electronic tags have been used to track fishes for decades and continue to gain popularity. Tags are often implanted in the coelom of fishes, with a substantial body of experimental evidence now asses...

This new paper was a team effort among students in my lab, led by @mitchellshorgan.bsky.social. Please share with your fish tracking colleagues!

@oceantracking.bsky.social @glatos-fish.bsky.social

link.springer.com/article/10.1...

And we're back in action Dec 9th! Join us at the Publican at 7:30 pm for drinks, good company, and an account of the conservation fight for arctic shorebirds with Paul A. Smith

More Oxygen Won’t Save Fish from Warming Waters Trent study helps inform long-standing theory about increasing oxygen levels in higher water temperatures to support heat tolerance in aquatic species

In this new study, we provide new data relevant to the debate about whether oxygen limitation is a universal driver of thermal tolerance in water breathing animals.

News story: www.trentu.ca/news/story/2...

Paper: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Primer: journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

CONGRATULATIONS!
Larkin Award, PhD Winner
#BradleyHowell
🪼
[Graham Raby, #TrentUniversity & Steven Cooke, #CarletonUniversity]
🪼
Bradley’s research focuses on using telemetry and respirometry data to assess #predatorprey interactions and movement patterns that raise predation risk.

The effects of temperature on organismal performance are depicted using thermal performance curves, where performance is greatest at the optimal temperature and starts to decrease toward cooler or warmer temperatures, reflecting the thermal window (tolerable range of temperatures) of the species. Briefly, the Oxygen and Capacity Limited Thermal Tolerance hypothesis proposes that oxygen limitation explains the performance decline at high temperatures and sets the first boundary for thermal limits across ectotherms. This is due to a mismatch between the oxygen demand of the organism and the capacity of the cardiorespiratory system to supply oxygen to tissues when the organism is under warming. This concept is central to predict species responses to warming. As oxygen supersaturation in water has been shown to alleviate oxygen supply limitations by increasing maximum rates of oxygen transport in blood, Raby and colleagues (2025) tested the effects of oxygen supersaturation on thermal tolerance across 14 aquatic species. The authors found that it had negligible effects on upper thermal limits, challenging the oxygen limitation hypothesis as a universal mechanism underpinning thermal tolerance of aquatic ectotherms. The authors highlight that oxygen supersaturation in water, a naturally occurring phenomenon in shallow waters, may not protect aquatic species from the effects of extreme heat.

Oxygen limitation is considered a key mechanism of #ThermalTolerance. @dianasmadeira.bsky.social explores how a @plosbiology.org study challenges this idea, showing minimal protective effects of O2 supersaturation in heat-stressed #aquatic #ectotherms 🧪 Paper: plos.io/43hzMQa Primer: plos.io/3XeUtbS

Effect of hyperoxia (150% air saturation) on warming tolerance in 14 aquatic ectotherms from across the globe. Left: Forest plot showing effect sizes (model estimates ± 95% confidence intervals) for the effect of hyperoxia on warming tolerance. Black symbols are the fast warming (0.3°C min−1) trials, blue symbols are the slow warming (1°C h−1) trials, and yellow symbols are for a net combined effect with random effects for subgroups of the 24 experiments. The effects were considered statistically significant where the 95% confidence interval does not cross the red vertical line. Right: Approximate geographical distributions for the 10 species of fish (top) and four species of decapod crustaceans (bottom) used in the laboratory experiments to assess the effects of hyperoxia on upper thermal tolerance.

Oxygen supersaturation is proposed to buffer against #HeatStress in water-breathing animals. @graham-raby.bsky.social @jutfelt.bsky.social &co re-examine this question in diverse #aquatic #ectotherms, showing that #hyperoxia has minimal impact on thermal tolerance @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/43hzMQa

The effects of temperature on organismal performance are depicted using thermal performance curves, where performance is greatest at the optimal temperature and starts to decrease toward cooler or warmer temperatures, reflecting the thermal window (tolerable range of temperatures) of the species. Briefly, the Oxygen and Capacity Limited Thermal Tolerance hypothesis proposes that oxygen limitation explains the performance decline at high temperatures and sets the first boundary for thermal limits across ectotherms. This is due to a mismatch between the oxygen demand of the organism and the capacity of the cardiorespiratory system to supply oxygen to tissues when the organism is under warming. This concept is central to predict species responses to warming. As oxygen supersaturation in water has been shown to alleviate oxygen supply limitations by increasing maximum rates of oxygen transport in blood, Raby and colleagues (2025) tested the effects of oxygen supersaturation on thermal tolerance across 14 aquatic species. The authors found that it had negligible effects on upper thermal limits, challenging the oxygen limitation hypothesis as a universal mechanism underpinning thermal tolerance of aquatic ectotherms. The authors highlight that oxygen supersaturation in water, a naturally occurring phenomenon in shallow waters, may not protect aquatic species from the effects of extreme heat.

Oxygen limitation is considered a key mechanism of #ThermalTolerance. @dianasmadeira.bsky.social explores how a @plosbiology.org study challenges this idea, showing minimal protective effects of O2 supersaturation in heat-stressed #aquatic #ectotherms 🧪 Paper: plos.io/43hzMQa Primer: plos.io/3XeUtbS

Very exciting to finally have this work out there. Thanks to the team at @plosbiology.org for being willing to publish null results!

Special thanks to @dianasmadeira.bsky.social for authoring this thoughtful primer about the study we published this week in @plosbiology.org Good suggestions about all the work we still need to do to unveil the mechanisms underlying variation in thermal tolerance.

journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...

Effect of hyperoxia (150% air saturation) on warming tolerance in 14 aquatic ectotherms from across the globe. Left: Forest plot showing effect sizes (model estimates ± 95% confidence intervals) for the effect of hyperoxia on warming tolerance. Black symbols are the fast warming (0.3°C min−1) trials, blue symbols are the slow warming (1°C h−1) trials, and yellow symbols are for a net combined effect with random effects for subgroups of the 24 experiments. The effects were considered statistically significant where the 95% confidence interval does not cross the red vertical line. Right: Approximate geographical distributions for the 10 species of fish (top) and four species of decapod crustaceans (bottom) used in the laboratory experiments to assess the effects of hyperoxia on upper thermal tolerance.

Oxygen supersaturation is proposed to buffer against #HeatStress in water-breathing animals. @graham-raby.bsky.social @jutfelt.bsky.social &co re-examine this question in diverse #aquatic #ectotherms, showing that #hyperoxia has minimal impact on thermal tolerance @plosbiology.org 🧪 plos.io/43hzMQa

Very happy and proud to see this one published! Have a look at this global assessment of the effect – or lack of effect – of extra oxygen (hyperoxia) on ectotherm thermal tolerance! Led by @graham-raby.bsky.social and a team of incredible collaborators working on multiple taxa 🐟 🐠 🦀 🦐.

Oxygen supersaturation has been reported to protect aquatic animals from heat waves. We tested this in a large collaborative experiment on many species of fish and crustaceans. Our new paper in @plosbiology.org shows that the effect of hyperoxia on thermal tolerance is negligible. Unfortunately.

Boat salad

We have the most photogenic campus

Excited about a new preprint from PhD candidate Megan Heft, showing that nestling provisioning rates in male tree swallows are not limited by the male's risk of overheating (in contrast with previous studies of females) 🧪 #ornithology #science
www.biorxiv.org/content/bior...

If you're a fish tracking nerd you know and love the sight of this pink foam

Caught a couple northern sunfish in a beach seine today; first time ever seeing these for me (in the Otonabee River near Trent U).