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Postdoctoral Research FellowResearch UnitPelagic Ecosystems Lab |
Degrees
B.Sc.(Env Sci) – Environment – McGill University
M.Sc. – Marine Sciences – University of New England
Ph.D. – Oceanography – University of British Columbia
Contact Information
Email: j.lerner@oceans.ubc.ca
Social Media
ResearchGate: Jacob Lerner
Teaching
Instructor – Biological Oceanography – Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre
Biography
Jacob Lerner was spawned in New Jersey, USA. Like a typical juvenile marine scientist, he spent his youth digging up sand crabs at the shore, watching Splash (1984), and devising controlled feeding experiments for the marine animals in Zoo Tycoon. After out-migrating to Canada, Jacob became involved in aquatic science as a student at McGill University. There, he got hooked on fish ecology though his involvement in multiple lake-based research projects, culminating in one enchanted summer spent dissecting hundreds of fish gonads in Northern Wisconsin. Finding lake science too contained, he pivoted to the marine environment. He completed an M.Sc. at the University of New England where he used stable isotope analysis to study grey seals and marine food webs in the Gulf of Maine. His novel way of doing so, using stable isotope signatures of freshly cut seal pup whiskers and lanugo as evidence of maternal marine foraging, earned him the moniker “Grey Clips”. He continued to develop his interest in biochemical tracers and marine food webs as he pursued a Ph.D. in the Pelagic Ecosystems Lab the University of British Columbia (UBC). His thesis investigated the marine foraging, energy accumulation, distribution and food webs of Chinook salmon. Jacob completed his Ph.D. in 2024 and can still be found at UBC — and probably will be until the IOF wins an inter-departmental softball championship — where he is now a postdoctoral fellow investigating thiamine deficiency in British Columbia Chinook salmon populations.
Research Interests
I am broadly interested in all things marine science but specifically in the trophic ecology and structure of pelagic food webs, the use of biochemical tracers, the marine behaviour of Pacific salmon, and the impacts of climate change on marine food webs.
Selected Publications
Lerner, J. E. and Hunt, B. P. V. (2024) ‘Stable Isotopes Delineate Regional Pelagic Food Web Structure in British Columbia’s Coastal Ocean’, Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, 81(4), pp. 368-386. doi: 10.1139/cjfas-2023-0057
Lerner, J. E. and Hunt, B. P. V. (2023) ‘Seasonal variation in the lipid content of Fraser River Chinook Salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and its implications for Southern Resident Killer Whale (Orcinus orca) prey quality’, Scientific Reports, 13(1), pp. 1–14. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-283219.
Lerner, J. E., Marchese, C. and Hunt, B.P.V. (2022) ‘Stable isotopes reveal that bottom-up omnivory drives food chain length and trophic position in eutrophic coastal ecosystems’, ICES Journal of Marine Science, pp. 1–13. doi: 10.1093/icesjms/fsac171.
Lerner, J. E. and Hunt, B. P. V. (2022) ‘Experimental validation confirms a carbon stable isotope lipid normalization procedure for Pacific salmon’, Marine Ecology Progress Series, 698, pp. 191–197. doi: 10.3354/meps14155.
Lerner, J. E., Forster, I. and Hunt, B. P. V. (2021) ‘Experimentally derived trophic enrichment and discrimination factors for Chinook salmon, Oncorhynchus tshawytscha’, Rapid Communications in Mass Spectrometry, 35(13), pp. 1–11. doi: 10.1002/rcm.9092.
Lerner, J. E. et al. (2018) ‘Evaluating the use of stable isotope analysis to infer the feeding ecology of a growing US gray seal (Halichoerus grypus) population’, PLoS ONE, 13(2), p. e0192241. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0192241.