About
The Toxopeus lab researches how insects and other critters survive winter at St. Francis Xavier University, located in Mi’kma’ki, the ancestral and unceded territory of the Mi’kmaq People (a.k.a. Nova Scotia, Canada). Use the menu tabs above to read more about our team, the research we do, opportunities to join the lab, and information about the courses that Dr. Toxopeus teaches.
Recent News
27 November 2025 – Big congratulations to Jona on a successful MSc thesis defense today! You can read their thesis here.
6 November 2025 – Manuscript accepted! Congratulations to Jona and Luke, whose article on stonefly cold tolerance has been accepted for publication by the Canadian Entomologist!! It’ll be a few weeks before it’s available online, but you can always read the the pre-print if you really want to know all about it right this second.
15 October 2025 – Kenechukwu, Jona, and Jantina had fun running a hands-on bug-freezing activity for high school students visiting StFX for Black Excellence Day!
8 October 2025 – Jona and Luke’s stonefly pre-print was featured in the Journal of Experimental Biology’s preLights!
1 October 2025 – Farewell and safe travels to Yunyi Yang, who worked in our group as a Mitacs Globalink intern for the last 3 months!
29 September 2025 – Welcome to Kiersten MacGrath, a new undergraduate volunteer who is helping take care of the cricket colony this semester!
17 September 2025 – A new CSZ Blog Post highlights the EDI workshop that Jantina helped organize this summer. Lots of good tips on building and supporting diverse research groups!
22 August 2025 – Farewell (but not really farewell!) to Amber, who has finished up her summer project! Amber but will continue to work in the lab on oyster heat tolerance with Drs. Tammy Rodela and Russell Wyeth.
21 August 2025 – Manuscript accepted!! Congratulations to Kenechukwu for his contribution to our new paper on how acclimation alters energy storage and mitochondrial function in freeze-tolerant crickets, in collaboration with Dr. Nicolas Pichaud‘s lab at U de Moncton.
20 August 2025 – Well done to Teresa, who has wrapped up her summer research. She’ll be back for more as she completes her Honours thesis during the 2025-2026 academic year!
16 August 2025 – Had a nice end-of-summer mini golfing session with the lab!
7 August 2025 – New pre-print! This nice note on winter-active stonefly cold tolerance is based on side-projects that Jona Lopez Pedersen and Luke Burton completed during their MSc degrees.
18 July 2025 – Well done to both Jona Lopez Pedersen and Kenechukwu Ojukwu for presenting their research on spruce budworm overwintering at ISEPEP (International Symposium on the Environmental Physiology of Ectotherms and Plants) in Vancouver, BC this week! Jantina also presented on an in-progress project with our freeze-tolerant crickets.
11 July 2025 – The Toxopeus lab was defeated in a Mario Kart tournament with the Rodela lab today, with Jona snagging runner up.
2 July 2025 – Welcome to Yunyi Yang, who joins us for 3 months on a Mitacs Globalink Research Internship!
26 June 2025 – Failed to take a photo, but we had a nice lab brunch this morning!
12 June 2025 – Congratulations to both Jona Lopez Pedersen (1st place) and Kenechukwu Ojukwu (runner up) for winning poster awards at the Acadian Entomological Society annual meeting this week in Moncton, NB!
31 May 2025 – Jantina enjoyed facilitating land-based learning activities at StFX’s inaugural X-STEM camp for Mi’kmaw and African Nova Scotian youth.
5 May 2025 – Big congrats to Jona Lopez Pedersen, who was the Graduate Student winner of the Nova Scotia Institute of Sciences (NSIS) Science and Technology Communication Award for their essay on diapause. We made the trip to Halifax for the awards ceremony!
5 May 2025 – Welcome back to summer research students Teresa Keenan and Amber Gough. Both will be working with freeze-tolerant crickets this summer!
4 May 2025 – Congratulations to StFX students that graduated today, including Toxopeus lab member Amber Gough – proud winner of the Dr. Leo P. Chaisson Award for Biology to the Outstanding Advanced Major or Honours Student!!
23 Apr 2025 – Amber’s honours thesis is now available online!
22 Apr 2025 – Congratulations to Teresa Keenan, who has been awarded a StFX Biology McLachlan Award to support her summer research project!
14 Apr 2025 – Congratulations to lab alumna Maranda van Oirschot, who was interviewed about her recent article in the Journal of Experimental Biology’s ECR Spotlight series.
8 Apr 2025 – Publication news! Well done to several Toxopeus lab members, whose paper on Catalase (an antioxidant enzyme) in freeze-tolerant crickets has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Insect Physiology! The article combines work from several Toxopeus lab alumni, including the MSc project of Sarah Rokosh (assisted by Victoria Adams and Amber Gough), and the BSc projects of Robyn Walter (Directed Study) and Grace Kaiser (Honours). Congrats to all!
31 Mar 2025 – The Toxopeus lab was well-represented at the Biology end of year Banquet!
25 Mar 2025 – Congratulations to Jona for participating in StFX’s 3-Minute Thesis competition today!
13 Mar 2025 – Jona gave an excellent talk in the StFX Biology department seminar series today on their MSc project!
11 Mar 2025 – Publication news! Congratulations to Maranda van Oirschot, whose undergraduate research project on cytoskeletal changes in freeze-tolerant crickets has been accepted for publication by the Journal of Experimental Biology!
9 Mar 2025 – Well done to Amber and the other StFX students who presented at the Science Atlantic Biology and Applied Aquatic Sciences conference this weekend in Wolfville, NS!
5 Mar 2025 – Congratulations to Amber, who has secured an NSERC Undergraduate Summer Research Award to continue working with the Toxopeus lab this summer, on a molecular stress biology project co-supervised by Dr. Tammy Rodela!
28 Feb 2025 – As part of a fundraising event for the Biology Society, Jantina got pied in the face today! There is video evidence…
18 Feb 2025 – New pre-print! This work explores the connection between oxidative stress tolerance (via antioxidant enzymes like Catalase) and freeze tolerance in the spring field cricket. The article combines work from several Toxopeus lab alumni, including the MSc project of Sarah Rokosh (assisted by Victoria Adams and Amber Gough), and the BSc projects of Robyn Walter (Directed Study) and Grace Kaiser (Honours). Congrats to all!
12 Feb 2025 – Congratulations to Amber, who gave an excellent presentation on her Honours thesis work as part of the Biology department seminar series! The mystery of how ticks carrying Lyme disease survive winter continues…
6 Jan 2025 – Welcome back to Kenechukwu, who has finished up his fall semester visit to Memorial University!
10 Dec 2024 – Jantina has received the official letter that her application for tenure and promotion to associate professor has been approved! (Coming into effect July 1, 2025.)
6 Dec 2024 – Publication news: our manuscript on expression of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) in freeze-tolerant crickets has been accepted at Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology A!! This was the focus of Victoria Adams’ Honours thesis, which she and Maranda van Oirschot expanded on to create a nice data-rich manuscript.
3 Dec 2024 – It’s X Ring day! An exciting time for all those celebrating, including Amber and Luke from our research group!
1 Dec 2024 – Congratulations to Luke Burton, who officially graduated from the MSc Biology program today!
25 Nov 2024 – Congratulations to Maranda van Oirschot, whose main undergraduate research project on the cytoskeleton of freeze-tolerant crickets is now available as a pre-print!
11 Nov 2024 – Publication news: our manuscript on the cold tolerance of invasive jumping worms has been accepted at Biological Invasions!! This was the work of last year’s Biol 381 (Research Experience) class, along with our collaborator Erin Cameron at Saint Mary’s University.
4 Nov 2024 – Congratulations to Victoria Adams, whose Honours thesis research on gene expression of heat shock protein 70 (HSP70) in freeze-tolerant crickets is featured in our latest pre-print! Many thanks to Maranda van Oirschot, who did many hours of Western blotting to complement Victoria’s RT-qPCR data that show heat but not freezing stress causes HSP70 upregulation.
23 Sep 2024 – Thanks to Dr. Katie Marshall for being the first speaker in this semester’s StFX Biology seminar series!
17 Sep 2024 – Congratulations to Luke Burton, who has officially submitted his revised thesis, and will graduate this term! The thesis link will be available here in a couple of weeks.
16 Sep 2024 – Welcome to Dr. Katie Marshall, who is visiting our lab for 3 months as part of her sabbatical from the University of British Columbia! Funding support provided by the St. FX Visiting James Chair program.
1 Sep 2024 – A temporary farewell to Kenechukwu, who is off to visit the home campus of Memorial University in St. John’s, Newfoundland for the fall semester!
The Toxopeus Lab 