Robert Lenthall Jefferies Collection

When Bob Jefferies died unexpectedly in 2009, Canada lost one of its most important Arctic biologists at a vital and significant time. Bob was a professor at the University of Toronto from 1974 to 2009 in the Botany Department, which later became the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department.

This sub-community in the Churchill Communities of Knowledge digital archive celebrates Bob's life and research legacy. From 1978 to 2009, Bob and his students carried out field research on the effects of herbivory on salt-marsh vegetation by lesser snowgeese at La Pérouse Bay, on the shores of Hudson Bay, east of Churchill, Manitoba. Bob is seen above, at Camp Finney (Nestor 2) during spring melt in June 1983. Bob also did research with his students in other parts of the Churchill region, and elsewhere in the Arctic.

Bob not only worked in northern Canada. He carried out research in California, where he was a post-doc with Emmanuel Epstein, at University of California at Davis, from 1962-64, and a Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Bodega Marine Laboratory (UC Davis) in 2002-03. Bob also studied salt-marshes in the United Kingdom and Europe.

Digitized versions of many of Bob's research accomplishments can be found in this collection, including his students' theses and dissertations, along with images and other forms of media.

Correspondence and information relating to Bob's participation in the Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change is also lodged here.

The programme from Bob's Memorial Celebration, held on November 9th 2009, can be found here