May 2013
The comparative physiology group is pleased to welcome the NSERC USRA and co-op students that will be working for the summer.  A warm welcome also is extended to Paul McNeil, a PhD student visiting from Dr. Kath Sloman's lab at the University of the West of Scotland.

Congratulations to Scott Miller (Perry lab) on the successful defence of his MSc thesis.

Dr. Andrew Esbaugh of the Marine Science Institute at the University of Texas at Austin (formerly a PDF in the comparative physiology group) is looking for a PDF for a 3-year position working on CO2 transport and acid-base balance.
 
 
March and April 2013
Dr. Vance Trudea was interviewed by Radio Canada about his research on hormones in amphibians and how this fundamental physiological research can be applied to ecological problems such as amphibian decline.  Click here to listen to the interview.

Congratulations to Dr. Chris Martyniuk (a Trudeau lab alumnus), this year's recipient of the CSZ Boutilier New Investigator award!  Dr. Martyniuk also recently was recognized by the NASCE with the Gorbman-Bern New Investigator Award - well done!
 
 
February 2013
Students of the comparative physiology group have been successfully defending their theses in great numbers over the last few weeks.  Congratulations to Sara Abdallah (MSc, Perry/Jonz labs), Wudu Lado (PhD, Trudeau/Lewis labs), Chantal Lanctôt (MSc, Trudeau lab), Kim Mitchell (MSc, Moon lab) and Jeremy Fulton (MSc, Walsh lab).

The 22nd annual Comparative Physiology & Biochemistry Workshop took place at Elmhirst's Resort, Keene, ON from Feb. 1st to 3rd, 2013.  From the jam sessions in the Trudeau/Jonz cabin, to the trivia competition at the banquet (won by uOttawa comp phys students Sara Abdallah, Ben Campbell, Dan Carrie, Krystle Talbot, Peter Zachar... congrats!), to a series of stimulating talks... an enjoyable time was had by all! 
 

December 2012
Vance Trudeau was in the Ottawa Citizen and on CBC for the success of his amphibian "love potion" in eastern hellbender salamanders!
 
In November, post-doctoral Fellow Dr. Chris LeMoine (Walsh lab) travelled to Guadeloupe to work on "climbing gobies". This work, funded by the CSZ and The Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle de Paris, explores the metabolic physiology of these fish capable of climbing their way upstream during their juvenile migration. He will present preliminary results of his work on December 5th at the comp phys seminar.
 
Also in November, Krystle Talbot (MSc student with Perry & Gilmour) travelled to northern Ontario as part of a joint uOttawa/Carleton University "Let's Talk Science" team.  The team visited a variety of remote schools in the Dryden and Kenora regions to present fun and informative science activities to school children.
 
Yusuke Kumai (PhD student in the Perry lab) received a JEB Travelling Fellowship from the Company of Biologists for a 3-month research trip to UBC.  Yusuke will present some of his findings at a comp phys seminar next term.
 
Vance Trudeau is the current president of the recently formed North American Society for Comparative Endocrinology.  The NASCE will be meeting in Mexico in May 2013.
 

September 2012
Walsh lab travels...

In both June and August, members of the Walsh lab (Drs. Chris Lemoine, Carol Bucking and Pat Walsh) and a member of the Moon lab (Dr. Paul Craig) traveled to Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre and field sites on the east coast of Vancouver Island to study the plainfin midshipman and dogfish shark. While at BMSC, the group collaborated with the labs of Chris Wood (McMaster U), Gary Anderson (U Manitoba) and Greg Goss (U Alberta). Lots of samples to analyze and papers to write. Notably, there was a special performance of ‘Bamfield Style’ in Cabin 1 once again proving that the Bamfield experience should be on one’s ‘bucket list’.

Over the month of August Jeremy Fulton (MSc student) had the wonderful opportunity to travel to Miami to study gulf toadfish at the University of Miami’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science. He worked in Dr. Danielle McDonald's lab (https://www.facebook.com/ToadfishLab?fref=ts) and even had the ‘full blown’ Miami experience as tropical storm Issac passed directly over Key West giving him a few days of intense weather; an experience he won't soon forget. Rumour has it that Jeremy also conducted behavioral observations of UM Graduate Students at the RSMAS Commons Bar.

Dr. Chris LeMoine (PDF) was awarded the Canadian Society of Zoologists Research Grant to undertake field work on "climbing gobies" in the French Caribbean island of Guadeloupe this upcoming November. Bon voyage Chris and take lots of pictures!
 
 
 

Archives

June 2012
Pat Walsh, Steve Perry and Katie Gilmour were among the organizers of "Woodstock 2012", the Society for Experimental Biology's 2012 Animal Symposium honouring Dr. Chris Wood.  The meeting took place in beautiful Tuscany, Italy - check out the meeting website for a selection of photos.
 
 
 
 
 

Pat Walsh, Coeditor-in-Chief of the journal Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology, sponsored a Publishing Connect Workshop on "How to write a great research paper, and get it accepted by a good journal".  The workshop was given by Anthony Newman of Elsevier, and had over 100 attendees!  Here is the material presented in the workshop - the presentation, an editorial on what to do and what not to do, and flowcharts on dealing with ethics issues.

May 2012
Congratulations to Yusuke Kumai, winner of the Hoar award at the recent Canadian Society of Zoologists' Annual Meeting!  The Hoar award is given for the best student paper presented orally at the annual meeting.  Yusuke is a PhD student in Steve Perry's lab.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Congratulations also to Dr. Steve Perry, 2012 recipient of the Canadian Society of Zoologists' Fry Medal.  This marks a "double" for the comparative physiology group, as Dr. Tom Moon was the 2004 recipient of the same award. 

 
November 2011
Lots of exciting events have been happening in the comparative physiology group over the last while... we have had PDFs move on to faculty positions, students have graduated, students and faculty have won awards, we organized the golden anniversary meeting of the Canadian Society of Zoologists, and many neat research results have been generated and published. To make our webpages as exciting as our research, we are now engaging in a major re-design of this site...

May 2011
The 50th anniversary meeting of the Canadian Society of Zoologists took place at uOttawa in May 2011, hosted by the comparative physiology group.

July 2010
Congratulations to Dr. Johanne Lewis (formerly of the Walsh lab), who has just started her new position at Georgia Southern University. Here are her new co-ordinates.

December 2009
Read about the work of Drs. Katie Gilmour and Steve Perry on CO2 excretion by zebrafish embryos and larvae in Inside JEB.

October 2009
Dr. Steve Perry is the 2010 recipient of the Award of Excellence from the Physiology Section of the American Fisheries Society. Congratulations! This marks a "double" for the comparative physiology group, as Dr. Pat Walsh was the 2006 recipient of the same award.

September 2009
Postdoctoral Fellow Dr. Johanne Lewis of the Walsh lab has been selected to participate in the course "Integrative Biology and Adaptation of Antarctic Marine Organisms" at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, January 4-February 1, 2010. Johanne will be part of a select group of 25 trainees chosen from among hundreds of applicants worldwide. She hopes to benefit greatly from this logical extension of her studies of the effects of temperature on aquatic organisms. We wish Johanne a great adventure!
Details of the course can be found at http://antarctica.usc.edu/.

Read about Johanne's adventures on the bottom of the world on http://logylew.blogspot.com/.

July 2009
Dr. Katie Gilmour was appointed Co-editor in chief of Physiological and Biochemical Zoology together with Dr. Patricia Schulte of UBC. This appointment brings to three the editors of comparative physiology journals that call uOttawa home... Gilmour (Physiological and Biochemical Zoology), Perry (Journal of Experimental Biology) and Walsh (Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology).

March 2009
Recent work by Dr. Jean-Michel Weber and his student Simba Nagahuedi has demonstrated that feeding n-3 fatty acids to "couch potato" quails significantly increased the activities of key oxidative enzymes in flight muscle in a way that is normally achieved only through extreme endurance training. This work was featured in Science, Scientific American and the Journal of Experimental Biology's Inside JEB.

January 2009
Dr. Pat Walsh and colleagues published a paper in Science on the contribution of fish to the marine inorganic carbon cycle (see also the "Perspectives" piece that accompanied the article). The paper received a great deal of media attention - google "gut rocks" for a fine selection of articles!

November 2008
Dr. Steve Perry was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. Congratulations!

May 2007
Zhaohong Qin, a MSc student co-supervised by Dr. Steve Perry and Dr. John Lewis, won the George Holeton Award at the Canadian Society of Zoologists' Annual Meeting at McGill University (May 21st to 25th, 2007) for her poster "CO2 peripheral chemosensitivity in zebrafish gills". The George Holeton Award is presented for the most outstanding poster within the Comparative Physiology and Biochemistry section. Congratulations Zhaohong!
 
 
 
 

May 2007
Read about the lungfish work carried out in the labs of Dr. Katie Gilmour and Dr. Steve Perry in the Journal of Experimental Biology's Inside JEB.

November 2006
Find out about Dr. Pat Walsh’s work on urea excretion in toadfish through Quirks and Quarks.

November 2006
Dr. Jean-Michel Weber’s work on long-distance migration in the semi-palmated sandpiper was featured on Quirks and Quarks.