Jason Toy

CONTACT INFORMATION
jatoy@ucsc.edu
Long Marine Lab
130 McAllister Way
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

EDUCATION
B.S. Biotechnology, University of California, Davis (2015)

RESEARCH INTERESTS

It has become increasingly clear that emissions-driven changes in ocean temperature, pH, and dissolved oxygen will play a major role in shaping the future of marine ecosystems.  Yet, to fully understand how and why communities will change, we need to look past direct, short-term effects on individual organisms. In nature, species interact with each other in a multitude of different ways, encompassing competitive, mutualistic, and predatory interactions. These interactions can be a major driving force behind the structure of marine communities, determining what species are present and their relative abundances. In my dissertation research, I therefore investigate how natural and anthropogenic changes in environmental variables affect the direction or strength of these interactions, which will impact how environmental changes scale up to effect communities and ecosystem function.  Global environmental change is also a long-term issue, with much warming, for example, already “baked in” to our future.  Acknowledging this long term nature of global environmental change, I also explore how these physical and emergent biological changes may effect the evolution and viability of populations within these communities, including the impact of local adaptation on population resilience, and the genomic patterns of range expansions/contractions.
Jason's website