New paper in Nature Climate Change
May 2025
Jeff recently co-authored a paper in Nature Climate Change based on work he was a part of as a Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoc over in Norway!
The work presents the results of a long-term selection experiment with wild-caught zebrafish to reveal that how fish evolve to climate change may not be as straightforward as we previously thought. Contrary to what the team hypothesized, we found no evidence of fish evolving the capacity to use oxygen more efficiently, and we saw no evolutionary trade-offs in growth, reproduction, or swimming performance. What they did see was that the warm-adapted fish were also more tolerant to cold water.
If a consequence of evolving to warmer temperatures is the added benefit of increased tolerance to colder temperatures, this could help facilitate faster movement into colder waters and increase the breadth of temperatures that fish can use to escape high temperatures.
New paper in Communications Biology
May 2025
Our lab recently published a paper in Communications Biology showing how heat waves can exacerbate the impacts that we humans can have on nature..
In most parts of eastern North America, clam diggers need to throw back soft-shell clams smaller than 50mm length. Most of those clams reburrow soon after being thrown back and go on to live another day. However, in field experiments, we found that tossed back, sub-legal clams become physiologically unhealthy during heat waves and fail to reburrow into the sediment. At the same time, predator activity dramatically increases due to the high temperatures and the clams suffer near complete mortality.
Our paper documents how extreme climate events can exacerbate the impacts that us humans have on ecological systems, and provides key insights for ecosystem-based fisheries management as our planet continues to warm.
New paper in FACETS
April 2025
Jeff recently published a new paper in the journal FACETS documenting contemporary trends in clam landings data in the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence! The paper ultimately describes a dwindling Canadian fishery—unfortunate given the cultural and spiritual importance of clams to the Mi’kmaq People, and their socioeconomic importance to coastal communities in the region.
The analysis uncovered a contemporary shift from a multi-species fishery (all three species fished at equal rates) to a largely single-species fishery (soft-shell clams). More concerning is that landings declined by 80% between 2003 and 2022. Using a coarse proxy of catch-per-unit-effort (CPUE), the data provide some evidence that the landings decline may be indicative of a populations decline, but proper population assessments are needed.
These findings echo similar trends documented in the northeast United States. Jeff discusses the potential ecological and socioeconomic drivers of declining landings, calls for more research to understand the proximate causes, and suggests more direct attempts linking landings data to population status.
If you’re keen, you can read the paper for free HERE.
New book chapter on marine conservation
April 2025
Jeff recently co-authored a book chapter with a diverse array of colleagues from Canada and the USA providing an overview of a “conservation physiology toolbox” than can aid in generating a mechanistic understanding of conservation problems facing contemporary marine wildlife.
The chapter is published in the book “Marine ecology: An ecosystemic view of anthropogenic impacts“, edited by Juan Molina and Gabriela Blasina, and published by CRC Press.
New book chapter on ocean acidification imapcts
December 2024
Jeff recently co-authored a book chapter with colleagues from Australia, Norway. and Sweden, synthesizing the current state of literature regarding the effects of ocean acidification on marine animal behaviour.
The team reviewed the current literature related to the effects of ocean acidification to synthesize the likely effects on fish and invertebrate behaviour, underscoring recent controversies and how the field should proceed.
The chapter is published in the book “Behavioural responses to a changing world: Challenges and applications“, edited by Bob Wong and Ulrika Candolin, and published by Oxford University Press.
New paper in FACETS
September 2024
Jeff recently published a new paper in the journal FACETS regarding the process of scientific peer review!
Peer review is the cornerstone of ensuring scientific rigor and robustness. But it is imperfect and has issues that have driven contemporary criticism and mistrust in this process. This Perspective paper, co-authored by an all-star list of authors, suggests applying a “harm reduction” approach to rebuild confidence and trust in peer review.
If you’d like to read the paper, you can do so for free HERE.
New paper in Estuaries & Coasts
July 2024
Our lab published a new paper in the journal Estuaries & Coasts! This paper describes the calibration of a non-destructive, low-cost method for assessing intertidal soft-shell clam populations. We found that, in many (but not all) places, counting and measuring the length of visible siphon holes at low tide can be used to indicate the presence, density, and size-structure of individual clam beds.
This work sets the stage for Brooke-Lyn Power’s Master’s Thesis advancing this method to other species, habitats, and management regions! This paper is also the first paper for numerous team members and is Jeff’s first paper with a co-author from a secondary school: congrats on your first paper Sarah, Jill, and Isabelle!
If you’d like to read the paper, you can do so for free HERE.
Welcome to the lab, Brooke-Lyn
June 2024
We’re welcoming a new graduate student to the lab this month – say hello to Master’s candidate Brooke-Lyn Power!
Brooke-Lyn’s thesis, funded through Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Competitive Science Research Fund (CSRF), will be expanding on some recent work testing the efficacy of a non-invasive, low-effort method for conducting clam population assessments.
Brooke-Lyn is co-supervised by Dr. Heather Hunt at the University of New Brunswick in Saint John, NB.
New book chapter on soft-shell clams
December 2023
Jeff recently published a book chapter with his former PhD supervisor (Heather Hunt) on climate change impacts to the soft-shell clam, Mya arenaria.
Jeff and Heather reviewed the current literature related to the effects of ocean warming and acidification to synthesize the likely effects on soft-shell clams.
The chapter is published in the book “The Soft-Shell Clam Mya arenaria: Biology, Fisheries, and Mariculture“, edited by Vic Kennedy and Brian Beal, and published by the American Fisheries Society.
Welcome Sarah Harrison to the lab
September 2023
A warm welcome to Sarah Harrison, the newest Master’s student in the Clements Lab
Sarah’s master’s thesis will explore the spatial variability in soft-shell clam reproductive ecology to better inform the management of the soft-shell clam stock in our region.
Sarah will be co-supervised by Jeff’s former PhD supervisor at the University of New Brunswick, Dr. Heather Hunt
New paper in Aquaculture
July 2023
New paper out in the journal Aquaculture this week!
A cautionary tale regarding how we parameterize and use ecological carrying capacity indices in bivalve aquaculture for management and eco-certification.
The take home message is that simple approaches to estimating key ecosystem turnover rates can result in drastically miscalculating indices for classifying the “sustainability” of an aquaculture operation.
We caution against aquaculture sustainability thresholds based on these indices and stress that system complexity must be accounted for.
Read the article for free HERE!
New paper in Fisheries Research!
June 2023
New paper out today in Fisheries Research, once again from MSc student Tamara Ledoux!
This chapter studied the reproductive ecology of soft-shell clams in Kouchibouguac National Park.
The main take-home findings:
- There appears to be one spawning event that occurs in late June-early July.
- The shell length at which one would predict 50% of the soft-shell clam population to be sexually mature in KNP is ~40mm, regardless of biological sex.
- Sex ratios in KNP deviate substantially from any other published sex ratio for this species; sex ratios in the park were almost always >2:1 F:M (exceeding 3:1 F:M in some spots). This is super weird – previous publications all indicate 1:1 as the norm for this species (sometimes male skewed in contaminated areas). This was not at all expected and we still don’t know why it is…
- There is a curious absence of smaller males (25-35 mm) from the population compared to females (also unexpected and not yet explainable); the absence of these smaller males does not fully explain skewed sex ratios
The paper is free to read HERE!
This work also sets the stage for current MSc student (Sarah Harrison, co-supervised with Heather Hunt) who will be exploring spatial variation in this reproductive ecology across the sGSL from northern NB, to the northern shore of NS and across PEI.
New paper in JEMBE!
May 2023
New paper out today in JEMBE from MSc student Tamara Ledoux!
What happens to sub-legal sized soft-shell clams after they’re fished and tossed back onto the sediment? Can they reburrow?
In our field experiments at Kouchibouguac National Park, Parks Canada, we found that they can reburrow, but they are slow, and the environmental conditions that they are tossed back to can greatly influence reburrowing!
Read the article for free HERE!
A MASSIVE congrats to Tamara Ledoux on successfully defending her Masters thesis!
April 2023
Huge congratulations to Tam Ledoux for successfully defending her Masters thesis from the Département de biologie at l’Université de Moncton!
Tam’s thesis centered on the fisheries ecology of soft-shell clams in Kouchibouguac National Park, exploring the fate of sub-legal, fished clams after they are tossed back to the sediment by fishers, along with the reproductive ecology of clams in the park.
Alongside already submitting her two thesis chapters for publication (one which was accepted with minor revisions this morning!), Tam also managed to publish her undergraduate honours research earlier this year.
Getting to supervise your first grad student from start to finish is incredibly rewarding, but getting to do it with an absolute rockstar of a student is icing on the cake!
An incredible amount of work and dedication. I could not be prouder!
Bravo Tamara!!!
Congrats to MSc student Tamara Ledoux on her first paper!
April 2023
A huge congratulations goes out to master’s student Tamara Ledoux on her first scientific publication! The paper, published last month in Frontiers in Marine Science, is based on work she conducted during her BSc honours research at the Université de Moncton regarding the impacts of anthropogenic sounds on the behaviour and physiology of eastern oysters.
Read the freely-accessible paper HERE!
Congrats Tam!!
New paper in PLOS Biology!
February 2023
Back in February 2022, Jeff and colleagues (Josefin Sundin, Tim Clark, and Fredrik Jutfelt) published a paper describing an extreme “decline effect” in studies testing for ocean acidification effects on fish behaviour. Philip Munday recently reanalyzed those data, claiming that his “reanalysis shows there is not an extreme decline effect.”
In this paper, Jeff et al. reply to Dr. Munday’s analysis and strongly reject his claim. Read the freely-accessible paper HERE!
Welcome to the Clements Lab! 