Dr Chris Jeffs

Postdoctoral researcher


Research Interests

My DPhil investigated soil seed banks to assess how fungal pathogens influence the composition and diversity of propagating seedling communities through their effects on plant growth and mortality. I worked in temperate grasslands in Wytham Woods, Oxford, and also in multiple tropical forest sites across a rainfall gradient in Panama looking at the effect of altered humidity on the strength of these important plant-natural enemy interactions. I also investigated how insect seed predators influence viable seed production in tropical trees on Barro Colorado Island, Panama, with potential consequences for seedling recruitment.

In March 2016 I started a postdoc position in the group investigating the effects of climate change on host-parasitoid food webs, focusing on Australian Drosophila and their parasitoids. I left in May 2018 to take up the post of Engagement Officer at the British Ecological Society.

Selected Publications

  • Jeffs, C. T. & Leather, S. R. (2014) Effects of extreme, fluctuating temperature events on life history traits of the grain aphid, Sitobion avenae. Entomologia Experimentalis et Applicata, 150: 240–249. doi: 10.1111/eea.12160
  • Jeffs, C. T. & Lewis, O. T. (2013) Effects of climate warming on host–parasitoid interactions. Ecological Entomology, 38: 209–218. doi: 10.1111/een.12026