Justin Waraniak
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marathon-rana.bsky.social
Justin Waraniak
@marathon-rana.bsky.social
Molecular ecologist, focusing on landscape genetics and conservation of freshwater ecosystems.
Postdoctoral Researcher, PA Fish & Wildlife Co-op at Penn State
he/him/they/them
Digital illustrator: www.marathonrana.com (Commissions Open)
Happy Pride! The diversity of life, in all its forms, is pretty rad!

(Side note: there's not a whole lot of purple fish, so the pink/silver goldeye is the best I got)

#SundayFishSketch #Pride
June 8, 2025 at 4:23 PM
2) Lipids acted as a mediating factor so that fish could maintain reproductive allocation in the presence of parasites, but this came at a cost of lower lipid stores in heavily parasitized fish.

🧵(3/3)
June 4, 2025 at 7:17 PM
1) Life history traits did not differ much among populations, despite the fact that they occupy very different habitats and have developed very different body shapes.

🧵(2/3)
June 4, 2025 at 7:17 PM
To celebrate the start of Pride Month, here are some Pride rainbow trout! Happy Pride everyone! #SundayFishSketch
June 1, 2025 at 3:37 PM
A little late, but finished a least darter for #SundayFishSketch! The mating displays of this species may not be as intense as some other darters, but males of this species still develop bright red blotches on their fins!
May 26, 2025 at 3:17 PM
Some old art of the Quitobaquito pupfish, an endangered species endemic to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument and the Sonoyata River along the Arizona-Mexico border! #SundayFishSketch #CincoDeMayo
May 4, 2025 at 1:53 PM
A johnny (the Baptist?) darter for this week's Easter-themed #SundayFishSketch! I was out doing some stream sampling this week and the darters were all colored up in their breeding colors, one of the surest signs of spring!
April 21, 2025 at 2:28 AM
I feel like winter ice fishing is the prime season for catching burbot, and I live in the wrong part of the country to catch them now, but I always thought the eelpout festival in Minnesota looked kind of fun! #SundayFishSketch
April 13, 2025 at 8:48 PM
It was the trout season opener this weekend in Pennsylvania, so to celebrate here's a brown trout! #SundayFishSketch
April 7, 2025 at 3:41 AM
Inking some spots for the next fish I'm working on. Any guesses on who they belong to?

#SundayFishSketch #WIP
March 30, 2025 at 3:54 PM
We found specific genes that vary with temperature. As we learn how these genes vary across populations and environmental conditions, we can use them to find fish that are particularly stressed by heat or may be most able to adapt to future climate conditions! (5/5)
March 18, 2025 at 6:17 PM
...which lets us compare the paths that gene expression takes through time in each stream. All the streams followed similar paths, especially during the second heatwave when changes in gene expression were the most pronounced. (4/5)
March 18, 2025 at 6:17 PM
We used TagSeq to quantify the relative amounts of different mRNAs. Because we sampled the same streams multiple times, we could track how the composition of genes being expressed changed with temperature. We tracked these changes using a trajectory analysis... (3/5)
March 18, 2025 at 6:17 PM
Climate change makes heatwaves more frequent, hotter, and longer, which is bad news for brook trout which need cool streams in which to spawn, grow, and live.

We collected gill samples from brook trout in streams around Penn State across two heatwaves during the summer of 2023 (2/5)
March 18, 2025 at 6:17 PM
I'm really excited to share our most recent paper on gene expression in wild populations of brook trout in response to heatwaves! We identified candidate biomarkers of heat stress and tracked changes across the whole transcriptome in multiple populations. (1/5)

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
March 18, 2025 at 6:17 PM
I re-drew a common shiner for this week's #SundayFishSketch! This was one of the first fish I drew while figuring out my digital art workflow, and it's fun to see how my style has developed over the years! #redraw
March 16, 2025 at 8:55 PM
Finished a flathead chub for this week's #SundayFishSketch!
March 9, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Did you know: NOAA manages US marine fisheries, including the fisheries in the Great Lakes! So if you like having sustainable local fisheries, thank NOAA scientists (and maybe advocate against the indiscriminate firing policies pushed by power-crazed billionaires).

#SundayFishSketch #LakeWhitefish
March 2, 2025 at 5:07 PM
Since it's the Super Bowl, here's a repost of a carmine shiner, native to the KC area (and that I drew for the Chiefs last year 😞) and a brook trout, the state fish of Pennsylvania! Go Birds I guess? #SundayFishSketch
February 10, 2025 at 1:48 AM
One-line rock bass for this week's #SundayFishSketch challenge!
February 3, 2025 at 2:48 AM
Diversity is pretty neat actually.

#SundayFishSketch
January 27, 2025 at 1:18 AM
The lake chub is a widespread minnow found throughout most of Canada, a few watersheds in the northern lower 48, and is the only minnow native to Alaska!

#SundayFishSketch
January 12, 2025 at 3:56 PM
Rainbows 🌈 are a classic sign of good luck, so here is a rainbow darter to start the year! I always love spotting these little fish bringing a dash of brilliant color to midwestern streams! #SundayFishSketch
January 5, 2025 at 4:42 PM
A #GarWeek #25DaysofFishmas #SundayFishSketch crossover with one of the coolest fish in the Great Lakes region, the longnose gar? It's a Christmas miracle!
December 23, 2024 at 3:14 AM
A bit of a peek behind the curtain (and and actual sketch) with this WIP red shiner for this week's #25DaysofFishmas #SundayFishSketch!
December 15, 2024 at 9:49 PM