Rush Dhillon, PhD | Cartoonist & Illustrator

forestgeneticsconference2025.com

Logo for the Forest Genetics Conference 2025. The logo is a nod to the Western Forest Genetics Association (WFGA), the Southern Forest Tree Improvement Committee (SFTIC), & the Northern Forest Genetics Association (NFGA). June 23-27th, hosted by the Schatz Centre at Penn State, in State College, PA

Understanding animal physiology in all its forms necessitates asking hard-to-measure questions. Until his retirement last year, @zoology.ubc.ca was lucky enough to have Bruce Gillespie create custom equipment for over 25 yrs, assisting us in quantifying our research. Here are a few of his creations.

Coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch)

Van Kam Collaborates with Artist Rush Dhillon to Visualize Core Values - VAN KAM FREIGHTWAYS LTD. At Van Kam, we understand that the soul of a company lies not just in its services or its history, but in the values it upholds and lives by each day. Recently, we embarked on a creative journey to re...

It was fantastic to work with a local company so committed to their employees and the communities they serve.
www.vankam.com/portal/van-k...

From the archives - a little different from my usual projects, but a rewarding one: Van Kam is a Canadian company owned and operating out of Western Canada for almost 70 years. A while back they asked me to help them visualize their core values: Care, Achieve, and Develop.

rightwhalegenomes.ca/static/site-...

Recent paper from the lab of @tfrasierdna.bsky.social. The endangered North Atlantic right whale suffer from low genetic diversity and high mutation load, which can impact recovery. However, genetic purging has reduced harmful mutations, potentially contributing to future recovery.

Great evening with some @y2y.bsky.social friends discussing wildlife conservation and coexistence in the Elk Valley and beyond. Awesome to have graphics from @rushstudio.bsky.social and Fuse consulting anchoring our discussions. Exciting solutions for highway collisions and bear conflicts brewing.

The Erosion of Threatened Southern Mountain Caribou Migration Migration enables animals to access seasonally and spatially varying resources, resulting in greater abundance compared to analogous non-migratory wildlife. Both Western science and Indigenous knowle...

Thus, conservation efforts need to protect these migratory behaviours with landscape-level protections that preserve this flow of biomass and the communities that benefit from their movement. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.70095

New paper by Lamb et al. (@claytontlamb.bsky.social). Southern mountain caribou exhibit both vertical and horizontal migration, but migratory behaviours are under threat due to disturbances, particularly at lower elevations.

NEW PAPER: looking into the erosion of southern mountain caribou migrations. Over 35 years, migration distances shrank 15-25%, and elevational migrations are collapsing. Habitat loss, not weather, likely the main culprit. A major conservation challenge ahead.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Happy Holidays! Due to the postal strike this card did not get the distribution it usually does, and those who get one expect it late. But the sentiment remains the same - I hope everyone has a kickass 2025!

And on behalf of Kuma and Yider, don’t forget, #adoptdontshop.

Cover art illustrating a podcast called "The Warblers" featuring several species of colorful wood warblers

Folks, did you know there's a whole bird nerd podcast? It's called "Warblers" by Birds Canada. Not only does have a great name, but it also features some quality content .. e.g. the 20:00 mark on the latest episode someone waxing poetic about bird hybridization
🦉🧪
www.birdscanada.org/warblerspodc...

Coming in December: Registration for the first joint conference between WFGA-SFTIC-NFGA June 23-27, 2025 in State College, PA - See you there!!
#ForestGenetics2025 #climateadaptation #treebreeding #restoration #seedsourcing #biotechnology #conservation #foresthealth forestgeneticsconference2025.com

If you are curious about adopting from these wonderful agencies, reach out to them directly or feel free to shoot me any questions! Remember, #adoptdontshop

[ps: tone is for comedy. I actually approved of this adoption prior to his arrival]

Happy Holidays from sunny Vancouver!

The number one highlight of 2023 was arranging for the adoption of Yider for my parents (Free Korean Dogs) and Kuma for us (Adopt Korean Rescue). The upgrade to my life has been immeasurable, mostly because these goofballs are a laugh a minute.

… and UBC News!

news.ubc.ca/2023/11/29/w...

Out in Ecology!

esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Marine snails are vulnerable to climate change, and their limited mobility combined with the rapid rates of summertime warming in the Strait of Georgia increase exposure risk. Fiona Beaty explored this in detail in her recent work, out now in Ecology. It was a treat illustrating this one!

I am beyond proud of this work and can't wait to discuss the results and implications with all of you. And a true tour de force by @markcbitter.bsky.social! Congratulations!

Continuously fluctuating selection reveals extreme granularity and parallelism of adaptive tracking bioRxiv - the preprint server for biology, operated by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, a research and educational institution

I am thrilled to present the first paper out of my postdoc! It is my first contribution to a story I have followed for years and addresses the question that fascinates me most: how finely can populations adaptively track fluctuating environments?

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Out now!!! Mark Bitter, Dmitri Petrov, and Paul Schmidt used a high-resolution time series to show finely populations can adaptively track fluctuating environments, and how this fine-scale detects fluctuation that would be missed with coarser sampling time frames.

doi.org/10.1101/2023... !!!!

#grizzlybears #science #britishcolumbia

But Elk Valley is a highly productive habitat that continues to draw in high levels of grizzly immigration, and thus, more human-bear conflict. Immediate conservation efforts are needed to support this special population of bears.

Read more at:
conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

New paper by Clayton Lamb on the high grizzly bear mortality rates in Elk Valley, British Columbia. Human conflicts (ex: on properties), train, and car collisions are the primary causes of these deaths.