European Sea Bass are Way Cool because…

Join us for a story about European sea bass that is perhaps foreign to many audiences in the Pacific Northwest. European sea bass (Dicentrarchus labrax) inhabit estuary, lagoon, coastal, and marine habitats of Western Europe. Highlighting some discoveries from his past research trips to France, Yangfan Zhang will shed some light upon how this species can thrive in a fairly complex ecosystem. As an important recreational, commercial, and aquaculture species in Western Europe, conservation measures are in place to protect the species. More broadly, he wants to show that human society, as a whole, is tightly connected with the creatures at sea.

Yangfan Zhang is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of British Columbia, the President of American Fisheries Society-B.C. Student Subunit and a shortlisted candidate of Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarship. Yangfan wants to know how the environment affects the performance and survival of fishes. The journey of pursuing this question leads him to many research trips across the globe. During his travels, he develops and applies an integrated respiratory assessment paradigm that can answer many broad questions about the ecological performances of the fishes. In fact, many of his discoveries build upon the principles of respiratory physiology in fishes that originated from the Pacific Northwest in the 1960s, and thus it is his great pleasure to tell a story to the place where it all started. Find him on twitter @TheYangfanZHANG and check out his website!