Skip to main content
The University of British Columbia
UBC - A Place of Mind
The University of British Columbia
Faculty of Science Department of Zoology

Main navigation

  • About
    • Department History
    • Departmental Announcements
    • Buildings
    • Jobs
    • News
    • Contacts and Information
    • Parking
  • People
    • Faculty - Research
    • Faculty - Educational leadership
    • Lecturers
    • Staff
    • Graduate Students
    • Postdoctoral Fellows
    • Associate Members
    • Adjunct Members
    • Affiliate Members
    • Research Associates
    • Research Lab staff
    • Emeriti
    • Alumni
    • Awards
  • Research
    • Facilities
    • Affiliated Research Centres
    • Graduate Theses
  • Undergraduate Program
    • Biology Program
    • UBC Sciences – Biology
  • Graduate Program
    • Current Students
    • Prospective Students
    • Funding
    • Apply to TA
    • Courses & Modules
    • Wellness Resources
    • Student Handbook & Forms
    • Zoology Graduate Student Association
    • Contact
  • Events
    • Weekly Seminars
    • Special Seminars
    • CELL seminars
    • Discussion Groups
    • Calendar
    • Past Recorded Seminars
    • Event Archive
  • Resources
    • Workday
    • Return to Work (private)
    • Zoology Webmail (log in)
    • Password Change (log in)
    • Room and Vehicle Bookings (log in)
    • Computing (ZCU)
    • Aquatics (private)
    • Finance
    • HR: Human Resources
    • Safety
    • EDI Resources
    • Zoology EDI (private)
    • Peer Review of Teaching (private)
    • Departmental Meeting Notes (private)
    • Major Zoology Committees (private)
    • Zoology Policies (private)
    • Shipping & Receiving
    • Building access: keys and cards
    • Zoology Logo
    • Edit My Profile (private)
  • Log In

Breadcrumb

Home
»
Events
»
Special Seminars
»
Dennis H. Chitty Lecture

Main Menu: Secondary

  • Weekly Seminars
  • Special Seminars
    • Dennis H. Chitty Lecture
    • John M. Gosline Memorial Lecture
    • William S. Hoar Memorial Lecture
    • Peter W. Hochachka Memorial Lecture
    • Barbara McClintock Lecture
    • The David Randall Seminar
    • Geoffrey G.E. Scudder Lecture
  • CELL seminars
  • Discussion Groups
  • Calendar
  • Past Recorded Seminars
  • Event Archive

Dennis H. Chitty Lecture

Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

This lecture series honours Professor Dennis H. Chitty for his outstanding contributions to Population Biology and to the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia.

Dennis Chitty came to Canada from the United Kingdom in 1930 and obtained a B.A. from the University of Toronto in 1935. He returned to the United Kingdom and received an M.A. (1947) and D. Phil. (1950) from Oxford University, where he began studies with Charles Elton in the Bureau of Animal Population. He remained at Oxford until 1961, at which time he was appointed to the University of British Columbia.

Professor Chitty's research focused on understanding population cycles in small mammals. He quickly found that the conventional explanations of these fluctuations could not fit with the growing body of data on British voles. He proposed a novel explanation (now known as the Chitty Hypothesis of Population Regulation) that the cycles are self-generated by the interactions between individuals. He also proposed that the changes in behaviour and physiology that prevent population growth and lead to decline might have a genetic basis. His idea was the first to link evolutionary change to population phenomena and it generated decades of research into the roles of individual quality, genetics, and behaviour in population dynamics of animals.

Professor Chitty was made the recipient of the Master Teacher Award from the University of British Columbia in recognition of his excellence in teaching and Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada in recognition of his contribution to science in Canada. In 1988 he was awarded the Fry Medal of the Canadian Society of Zoology which honoured both him and the memory of Dr. Fred Fry with whom Professor Chitty had worked in the Ontario Fisheries Research Laboratory, 1932-1935. He formally retired from teaching in 1978 when he became Professor Emeritus. In 1995 he received a D.Sc. from Oxford University.

Previous Dennis H. Chitty Lecturers

Year Lecturer Title of seminar
2021 Tadashi Fukami Making sense of messy communities
2019 Simon Hart How diversity within species affects the maintenance of species diversity
2018 Jean Polfus & Frederick Andrew Ɂełexé Eghálets’eda (Learning Together): Advancing sustainable conservation through cross-cultural collaboration
2017 Ben Gilbert Species diversity: reconciling the effects of ecological drift and species differences
2016 Rosemary Gillespie  
2007 Robert D. Holt Niche conservatism, evolution, and applied ecology: challenges and opportunities
2006 Anthony Ives Phylogenetic signal in host-parasitoid associations & Diversity and biological control of aphids
2005 David Schindler The biogeochemistry of contaminants in high altitude ecosystems
2003 Kay Hollekamp Unusual reproductive strategies in the spotted hyena
2002 Bill Sutherland Linking behaviour, ecology and conservation
1997 Gail R. Michener Sex and the single squirrel: sexual differences in behavioural and physiological ecology of Richardson's ground squirrels
1995 Michael Rosenzweig How species accumulate in space and time
1994 Robert Ricklefs Development of senescence in birds 
1993 Nicholas B. Davies Chick feeding rules and their exploitation by cuckoos

 

Department of Zoology
4200 - 6270 University Blvd.
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4
604 822 2131
E-mail info@zoology.ubc.ca
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • UBC Copyright |
  • Accessibility