{"id":19120,"date":"2022-11-17T19:16:34","date_gmt":"2022-11-17T19:16:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wildsalmoncenter.org\/?p=19120"},"modified":"2022-11-17T19:16:34","modified_gmt":"2022-11-17T19:16:34","slug":"welcome-dr-tasha-thompson","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wildsalmoncenter.org\/2022\/11\/17\/welcome-dr-tasha-thompson\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Dr. Tasha Thompson"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Our first Polsky Science Fellow is building a groundbreaking genetics map for Pacific Chinook and steelhead. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Tasha Thompson has been a mountaineering guide and a wildland firefighter. She\u2019s traveled throughout southeast Asia, owned motorcycles and mountain bikes, and conducted research on subjects ranging from HIV to walruses.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Dr. Tasha Thompson, Wild Salmon Center’s first Jack Polsky Science Fellow, with a Chinook salmon. (PC: Rob Perkin, Connect Outfitters)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

But in 2015, while doing a lab rotation as a doctoral candidate in UC-Davis\u2019s genetics and genomics program, Dr. Thompson found her true passion: salmon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey\u2019re amazing,\u201d says Dr. Thompson. \u201cTo witness how evolution has shaped this species\u2014and continues to do so\u2014is just endlessly fascinating.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She\u2019s not your average salmon-fascinated bystander. With her spouse Dr. Mike Miller, also a geneticist, Dr. Thompson is now a leading scholar in salmon conservation science<\/strong>. And she definitely takes her work home with her; in 2020, as Oregon\u2019s Archie Creek Fire approached her family\u2019s home on the North Umpqua River, a collection of newly-acquired salmon fin clip samples<\/a> was among the precious few things she grabbed in the last-minute evacuation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, as Wild Salmon Center\u2019s first Polsky Science Fellow, Dr. Thompson is working to literally crack the code that first fascinated her<\/strong>. For the next two years, she\u2019s dedicating her time to a project of unprecedented scope: creating a range-wide whole-genome database for both Chinook salmon and steelhead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOur database will essentially serve as an atlas for genetic diversity,\u201d she says. \u201cOur goal is to provide a brand new tool for researchers\u2014one that they can use to better understand how any discoveries made in one river might play out across the rest of the species’ range.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to WSC Science Director Dr. Matt Sloat, this foundational data could enable an entirely new generation of salmon conservation science.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cDr. Thompson\u2019s research was advancing the world of salmon conservation genetics even before she joined our team,\u201d Dr. Sloat says. \u201cBut the work she\u2019s doing now as a Polsky Fellow has truly international implications. It could help unlock rafts of promising new conservation strategies across the North Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cThe work that Dr. Thompson is doing has truly international implications. It could help unlock rafts of promising new conservation strategies across the North Pacific.\u201d<\/p>\nWSC Science Director Dr. Matt Sloat<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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Dr. Tasha Thompson collecting samples in the field. (PC: Mikal Jakubal)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Dr. Thompson was part of the team that in 2017 discovered the specific gene<\/a> within Chinook salmon responsible for fall and spring run timing. Then, in 2018, Dr. Thompson led a groundbreaking research project<\/a> which found that one key gene factored into the fast decline of spring Chinook in Oregon\u2019s Upper Rogue River<\/a>\u2014a system where fall Chinook populations are now crowding out other genotypes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, these discoveries have upended schools of thought about how to best protect spring-run salmon populations<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe now know that if we lose the gene for spring Chinook in a river, we can’t expect that run to ever recover on its own, no matter how much we might improve water conditions or restore habitat,\u201d Dr. Thompson says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Thanks to her Polsky Fellowship, Dr. Thompson is now building on this earlier genetics work to launch her dream project: a comprehensive genetic map of wild Chinook across the North Pacific Rim to western Kamchatka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thanks to her Polsky Fellowship, Dr. Thompson is now launching her dream project: a comprehensive genetic map of wild Chinook across the North Pacific Rim to western Kamchatka.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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California Chinook (PC: iStock)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about a Chinook genomic map for about five years, and talking with Matt about it from the beginning,\u201d Dr. Thompson says. \u201cThe data will help us develop tools to pinpoint exactly where juveniles from different runs are rearing, accurately survey and monitor life history diversity, and develop smarter climate models, among other innovations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chinook salmon, she says, may just be the start point for this ambitious, first-of-its-kind project. With the DNA sequencing now complete for the species, Dr. Thompson and our science team are pivoting to analysis\u2014while also launching a new whole-genome mapping project for steelhead, a species with even greater run timing diversity than Chinook.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the next year, she says, the WSC Science Team aims to publish its initial Chinook findings and make this data publicly available to all researchers. <\/p>\n\n\n

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WSC Polsky Fellow Dr. Tasha Thompson and WSC’s Science Team have recently completed DNA sequencing for Chinook salmon populations across the species’ entire range. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\u201cOur goal is to open up this resource for everyone,\u201d Dr. Thompson says. \u201cThere are so many discoveries ahead of us. For example, we\u2019re just starting to understand how finely-tuned these genetic mechanisms are, dictating the difference not only between spring and fall Chinook, but also between earlier or later-returning fish in the same spring run.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere are potentially endless conservation projects that this data could enable,\u201d she adds<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the quest to better understand and protect wild salmon, we\u2019re honored to call Dr. Thompson a colleague. We\u2019re excited to see where this fascinating genetic journey leads next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cOur goal is to open up this resource for everyone. There are potentially endless conservation projects that this data could enable.”<\/p>\nWSC Polsky Science Fellow Dr. Tasha Thompson<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n

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