Dennis Hubert Chitty (18 September 1912 – 3 February 2010), was a professor of zoology at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

. In 1969, he was elected a Fellow of the

Royal Society of Canada The Royal Society of Canada (RSC; , SRC), also known as the Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences of Canada (French: ''Académies des arts, des lettres et des sciences du Canada''), is the senior national, bilingual council of distinguishe ...

. The Chitty Hypothesis of Population Regulation states that

population density Population density (in agriculture: Standing stock (disambiguation), standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geog ...

is limited by spacing behaviour, which has genetic underpinnings and rapidly responds to natural selection. Because of the controversial nature of this idea at the time,

David Lack David Lambert Lack FRS (16 July 1910 – 12 March 1973) was a British evolutionary biologist who made contributions to ornithology, ecology, and ethology. His 1947 book, ''Darwin's Finches'', on the finches of the Galapagos Islands was a land ...

attempted to veto Chitty's dissertation, though it was eventually accepted because of the intervention of

Peter Medawar Sir Peter Brian Medawar (; 28 February 1915 – 2 October 1987) was a British biologist and writer, whose works on graft rejection and the discovery of acquired immune tolerance have been fundamental to the medical practice of tissue and organ ...

.Was the Chitty Hypothesis of Population Regulation a ‘Big Idea’ in Ecology and was it successful?
/ref>

References

1912 births 2010 deaths Canadian zoologists Canadian ecologists Fellows of the Royal Society of Canada Academic staff of the University of British Columbia University of Toronto alumni Alumni of the University of Oxford British emigrants to Canada {{Canada-scientist-stub