Tillmann Benfey

Academic interests

• Environmental physiology of fish
• Physiology of triploid fish
• Fish performance evaluation in aquaculture

Brief biography

I grew up in Montreal (West Island) and completed my BSc in Biology at McGill, including Honours research on environmental factors affecting gemmule hatching in freshwater sponges.

A visit to the Atlantic Salmon Federation’s hatchery in Saint Andrews in 1980 sparked a life-long interest in aquaculture that led to graduate studies in applied fish physiology at Memorial University (MSc) and the University of British Columbia (PhD), followed by a NATO Science Fellowship in the United Kingdom.

I have been at UNB since 1989 where I have maintained an active research and training program in fish physiology, mainly related to understanding and optimizing fish performance in aquaculture. Much of this research has been on developing protocols for integrating triploid (sterile) populations into commercial salmon farming to ensure that escaped fish cannot breed in the wild.

The current focus of this research is on improving thermal and hypoxia tolerance of triploids. I maintain extensive research collaborations in Atlantic Canada and have also been involved with research and training projects in Panama and Chile.

I have served as an expert consultant on the safety and reproductive containment of genetically modified fish for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the US Food and Drug Administration, and the United Nations (FAO and WHO), and have twice served as President of the Aquaculture Association of Canada.

Courses taught

• BIOL 3802. Animal Physiology
• BIOL 3908. Laboratory Studies in Vertebrate Physiology
• BIOL 4991. Aquaculture in Canada

Selected research

Philibert, D., R.S. Stanton, C. Tang, N.L. Stock, T. Benfey, M. Pirrung & B. de Jourdan, 2024. The lethal and sublethal impacts of two tire rubber-derived chemicals on brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) fry and fingerlings, Chemosphere 360: 142319.

Small, C.D., T.J. Benfey & B.D. Crawford, 2024. Tissue-specific compensatory mechanisms maintain tissue architecture and body size independent of cell size in polyploid zebrafish. Dev. Biol. 509: 85-96.

Gonen, S., T.J. Benfey & A.F. Garber. 2024. The genomic architecture of high temperature tolerance in a year class of Atlantic salmon. Aquaculture 578: 740020.

Fedoroff, N., T. Benfey, L.V. Giddings, J. Jackson, J. Lichatowich, T. Lovejoy, J. Stanford, R.F. Thurow & R.N. Williams. 2022. Biotechnology can help us save the genetic heritage of salmon and other aquatic species. Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci. 119: e2202184119.