a large sturgeon in the Fraser river held by a smiling Madison on the nose and Chris on the tail. you can see the sturgeons face clearly highlighting the size of the nose and eyes

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 👃

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 🍽️

🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐🦑🐟

a juvenile sturgeon madison is holding prior to release, this size sturgeon loves a cuddle puddle!

3 sturgeon stickers created by madison, a white sturgeon, pallid sturgeon, and atlantic sturgeon

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

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 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

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

#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🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

madison holding a sturgeon prior to release on a boat in the fraser river

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 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🐟🌎🌐

hiiiii!! i work with the best dinosaur fish around, sturgeon & i would looooove to chat sturgies with you!!

check out #sturgeonsaturday for lots of my research related posts!! 🥹🥲

we caught this big mama while listening to pink pony club, so obviously #pinksturgieclub is now a thing

a close up of a baby sturgeon, in water, held in a yellow sling

the horrors persist, but so do closeups of baby sturgeon

everyone say hi to the cutest fish alive!!

#sturgeonsaturday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

madison standing on a boat - holding a 2-3 year old white sturgeon about 16 inches long prior to release

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🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

we’re so back baby!!

an excellent start to the sturgeon field season today :)

here’s a 7ft sturgeon being released

#sturgeonsaturday everyday 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐🦑

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)

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! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

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

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

#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 🧐

Graph of spawners per year in each cohort vs. a year when each cohort spawned. The one who spawned in 2010 is 1.7 times as large as the next closest.

It's #sturgeonsaturday 🌎 🧪

Anadromous fish sometimes have spawning cohorts that are larger than others (eg. odd vs even year pink salmon). It appears southern green sturgeon do as well. With 4 cohorts, the one which spawned in 2010, 2014, ... is by far the largest.

#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 👇🏼

#sturgeonsaturday (all week!!)

you may be thinking wow what do you mean no baby Nechak sturgeon in 70 years?

i’m gonna describe some of the problems the Nechako sturgeon face and what is being done to solve these problems

so follow along (if you love sturgeon and really who doesn’t)!!

🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌐🌎

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 🧪🌎🌐👩🏻‍🔬

madison wearing a white top and navy polkdot skirt smiling standing on a ferry

this #sturgeonsaturday looks a little different!!

on the way to a sturgeon gala to meet with some incredible people who are all working to save white sturgeon 🫶🏼

doing science together with different rights and shareholders gives us a chance to make lasting conservation changes! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

It's #sturgeonsaturday 🌎 🧪

You can tell a lot about a species with only a few tags. There aren't that many acoustic tags in southern green sturgeon, but there are enough to see where their spawning ground starts based on their speed past acoustic tag detection stations.

an illustration by madison detailing the changes in the gill during development in lake sturgeon. There are illustrations for GO terms in 3 bubbles. One bubble for each population and one bubble showing shared changes for both populations. there is a small sturgeon growing to a larger a sturgeon illustrated at the top.

#sturgeonsaturday on a thursday 😱 whaaaaat!! 🧪🌎👩🏻‍🔬🦑

new paper and illustration 🥲

we investigated what happens to the gill transcriptome during development in lake sturgeon

turns out bb sturgeon are using epigenetics (histone mods & dna methylation) and cell death (apoptosis) to make grown up gills

did you know that it can take white sturgeon over 20 years to spawn??

this is one of the reasons sturgeon populations are threatened ~ it takes longer for them to bounce back!

🧪🌎🌐👩🏻‍🔬

#sturgeonsaturday

madison holding a juvenile sturgeon prior to release on a boat, the sturgeon is holding their fins out and has many rows of sharp scutes

it’s not everyday i can release a sturgie with one hand! 🧪👩🏻‍🔬🌎🌐

these small sturgeon may be tiny (& adorable) but they are also feisty & covered in super sharp scutes (like small serrated knives)

these scutes protect small sturgeon from predators so they can live to be big & old!

#sturgeonsaturday

this #sturgeonsaturday is brought to you by the cutest creature in existence~ a tiny white sturgeon

yesterday with the help of citizen scientists we tagged & took minimally invasive samples from a bunch of lil sturgies to assess population stressors ~ so great to see these untagged juveniles! 🧪🌎👩🏻‍🔬🌐

A plot of river distance vs. travel speed. The travel speed drops after river kilometers 300. Above river kilometers 300 is labeled as "spawning ground"

It's #sturgeonsaturday 🌎🧪

The Sacramento River is long, and we don't want to look everywhere for green sturgeon spawners. So we use behavior seen on tags to watch their migration. We can see where they stop traveling fast and start getting down to "business." Then, we just look there.

i haven’t done #sturgeonsaturday the past few weeks bc of *everything*

but its #internationalwomensday and we should recognize & celebrate incredible women in science!

tell us about your research!👩🏻‍🔬

im a conservation physiologist researching the impacts of climate stressors on white sturgeon 🧪🌎