The federal government announced earlier this month that Dr. Tony Farrell, UBC Associate Dean, Postdoctoral Fellows and Professor in the Faculty of Land and Food Systems and the Department of Zoology has been appointed Canada Research Chair in Fish Physiology, Conservation and Culture.

His appointment is one of six new Canada Research chairs at the University of British Columbia, with a further 11 chairs renewed.

With human population growth, environmental degradation and climate change, there is a growing need to farm fish for consumption and to conserve wild fish. Confronting these problems will require new knowledge about how fish survive under environmental extremes.

Dr. Tony Farrell, Canada Research Chair in Fish Physiology, Conservation and Culture, is trying to understand the cardiac limits of fish under environmental extremes. For example, it remains a mystery how fish hearts can continue to function when water becomes too warm or contains little oxygen. To find answers, he measures tiny electrical currents when an isolated cardiac cell beats, assesses cardio-respiratory performance of salmon swimming in aquatic treadmills, and tracks migrating wild salmon in the Fraser River.

With global climate change forcing fish into areas of higher water temperature, Farrell is measuring optimal water temperatures for the Fraser River salmon and Canada’s Arctic cod, and will extend this work to tropical fishes. This research provides fisheries managers with vital information about the potential impacts of climate change on fish distributions. In addition, Farrell is studying a specialized group of fish that conserve cardiac energy by decreasing their heart rate when oxygen becomes limited or absent.

Farrell’s work will improve understanding of how heart rate in fishes is regulated under extreme conditions and may lead to improved fish farming and fish conservation practices.

http://people.landfood.ubc.ca/anthony.farrell/

The Faculty of Graduate Studies extends its congratulations to Dr. Farrell and all of the new and renewed Canada Research Chairs and we invite you to read the full article on the appointments published by UBC Public Affairs.