Dennis Hubert Chitty

Chitty, Dennis Hubert

Dennis Hubert Chitty, zoologist (born 18 September 1912 in Bristol, England; died 3 February 2010 in Vancouver, BC). Educated at University of Toronto and Oxford, he studied rodent populations as a research officer at the Bureau of Animal Population, Oxford, 1935-61. His pioneering studies on population fluctuations in small rodents and snowshoe hares culminated in the Chitty Hypothesis of population regulation that population growth is stopped by behavioural interactions that lead to the genetic selection of highly aggressive animals. Moving, as professor, to the University of British Columbia in 1961, Chitty taught ecology and the history and philosophy of biology. He was elected to the Royal Society of Canada in 1969, and he retired from active teaching in 1978 to devote his time to ecological research on rodent populations.