Griffith University

Chair of Ecology, Griffith School of Environment

Contact details for Professor Roger Kitching

Research Expertise

Roger Kitching heads the Arthropod Diversity Lab at Griffith University. His interests are in understanding patternsand processes of biodiversity using some of the most abundant and diverse organisms - the arthropods. He heads the Biodiversity Research theme of the Centre of Innovative Conservation Strategies.

Current Teaching Areas

• Biology
• Community Ecology
• Animal Diversity
• Field Ecology

Selected Publications 

• Kitching, R. L. (1983)  Systems Ecology   University of Queensland Press, St Lucia (xx +280 pp)
• Matthews, E.G. & Kitching, R.L. (1984) Insect Ecology (2nd Edition), University of Queensland Press, St Lucia (xviii + 211 pp)
• Kitching, R.L. (2000) Food Webs and Container Habitats, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge (xiii + 431 pp)
  
• Nakamura, A., Catterall, C. P. & Kitching, R. L., House, A. & Burwell, C. J. (In press) Effects of isolation on the colonisation of restored habitat patches by forest-dependent arthropods of soil and litter Insect Conservation and Biodiversity
• Grimbacher, P., Catterall, C. P. & Kitching, R. L. (In press). Detecting the effects of environmental change above the species level with beetles in a fragmented tropical rainforest landscape.  Ecological Entomology
• Schmidl, J., Sulzer, P. & Kitching, R. L. (In press) The insect assemblage in water filled treeholes in a European temperate deciduous forest: community composition reflects structural, trophic and physicochemical factors.  Hydrobiologia.
• Hillyer, M. J., Boulter, S. L., Kitching, R. L. &  Hughes, J. M. (2007) Isolation and characterisation of eight polymorphic microsatellite loci in the rainforest canopy tree, Syzygium sayeri (Myrtaceae).  Molecular Ecology Notes doi 10.1111/j.1471-8286.2007.01828.x
• Boulter, S. L. Kitching, R. L., gross, C. L., Goodall, K. L. & Howlett, B.G. (In press) Floral morphology, phenology and pollination in the Wet Tropics  In: Living in a Dynamic, Tropical Landscape (eds. S. L. Turton & N. E. Stork), Blackwells, Oxford.
• Nakamura, A., Catterall, C.P., House, A.P.N., Kitching, R.L., & Burwell,
• C.J. (2007) The use of ants and other soil and litter arthropods as bio-indicators of the impacts of rainforest clearing and subsequent land use. Journal of Insect Conservation, 11, 177-186.
• Kitching, R. L. , Boulter, S. L., Goodall, K. & Howlett, B. G. (2007)   Visitor assemblages  at flowers in a tropical rainforest canopy.  Austral Ecology 32, 29-42.
• Laidlaw, M., Kitching, R. L., Goodall, K. Small, A. & Stork, N. E. (2007)  Temporal and spatial variation in an Australian tropical rainforest.  Austral Ecology 32, 10-20.
• Kitching, R. L.  (2006)   Crafting the pieces of the diversity jigsaw puzzle.  Science (New York)  313, 1055-1057.
• Boulter, S. L., Kitching, R. L, Zalucki, J. M. & Goodall, K. L. (2006)  Reproductive Biology and Pollination in Rainforest Trees:  Techniques for a Community-level Approach, Rainforest CRC, Cairns, 72 pp..
• Beaulieu, F., Walter, D. E., Proctor, H. C., Kitching, R. L.  & Menzel, F. (2006)  Mesostigmatid mites (Acari: Mesostigmata) on rainforest tree trunks: arboreal specialists, but substrate generalists?  Experimental and Applied Acarology  39, 25-40.
• Eastwood, R., Pierce, N. E., Kitching, R. L. & Hughes, J. M. (2006)
• Do ants enhance diversification in lycaenid butterflies?  Phylogeographic  evidence from a model myrmecophile, Jalmenus evagoras.  Evolution 60, 315-327.
• Boulter, S. L., Kitching, R. L. & Howlett, B.. G. (2006)  Family, visitors and the weather - patterns of flowering in tropical rainforests of northern Australia.  Journal of Ecology 94, 369-382.
• Grimbacher, P., Catterall, C. P. & Kitching, R. L. (2006).  Beetle species' responses suggest that microclimate mediates fragmentation effects in tropical Australian rainforest.  Austral Ecology 31, 458-470
• Eastwood, R., Kitching, R. L. & Manh, H. B. (2005)    Behavioral observations on the early stages of Jamides celeno (Cramer) (Lycaenidae) at Cat Tien National Park, Vietnam: an obligate myrmecophile? Journal of the Lepidopterists' Society 59, 219-222.
• Kitching, R. L.,  Boulter, S. L.,  Vickerman, G., Laidlaw, M. , Hurley, K. L. &  Grimbacher, P.  L.  (2005)  The Comparative Assessment of Arthropod and Tree Biodiversity in Old-World Rainforests:  The Rainforest CRC/Earthwatch Protocol Manual, 2nd Edition Revised.  Rainforest CRC, Cairns, 80 pp.
• Boulter, S. L., Kitching, R. L., Howlett, B. G. & Goodall, K. (2005)  Any which way will do - the pollination biology of a northern Australian rainforest canopy tree (Syzygium sayeri; Myrtaceae).  Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 149, 69-84.
• Menzel, F. & Kitching, R. L. (2004) Host specificity or habitat structure?  The epicortical beetle assemblages in Australian subtropical rainforest.  European Journal of Entomology 101, 251-259.
• Kitching, R. L. (2004)  Those d???.. elusive food webs. Invited Essay review, Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 294-295.
• Basset, Y., Mavoungou, J. F., Mikissa, J. B., Missa, O., Miller, S. E. & Kitching, R. L. (2004).  Effect of anthropogenic disturbance on terrestrial arthropods at Gamba, Gabon: discriminatory power of different data sets.  Biodiversity & Conservation  13, 709-732.
• Novotny, V., Basset, Y., Miller, S. E., Kitching, R. L., Laidlaw, M., Drozd, P. & Cizek, L. (2004)  Local species richness of leaf-chewing insects feeding on woody plants from one ehctare of a lowland rainforest.  Conservation Biology 18, 227-237
• Small, A., Martin, T., Kitching, R. L. & Khoon Meng, W. (2004).  Contribution of tree species to the biodiversity of a one hectare plot of Old-World rainforest, Brunei, Borneo.  Biodiversity and Conservation  13, 2067-2088.
• Kitching, R. L., Bickel, D., Creagh, A. C., Hurley, K. & Symonds, C. (2004)  The biodiversity of Diptera in Old-world rainforest surveys: a comparative analysis.  Journal of Biogeography 31, 1185-1200.
• Ozanne, C. M. P., ANHUF, D., Boulter, S. L., Keller, M., Kitching, R. L., K??rner, C., Meinzer, F. C., Mitchell, A. W., Nakashizuka, T., Silva Dias P. L.. Stork, N. E., Wright, S. J. & Yoshimura, M. (2003).  Forest canopies: understanding global ecosystems.  Science (New York)  301, 183-186.
• Orr, A. G. & Kitching, R. L.  (2003)   A faunistic analysis of Macrolepidoptera from complex notophyll vine forest, North Queensland, Australia.  Journal of Natural History 37, 1537-1554.
• Majer, J. D., Kitching, R. L., Heterick, B. E., Hurley, K & Brennan, K. E. C.  (2001) North-South patterns within arboreal ant assemblages from rainforests in Eastern Australia.  Biotropica. 33, 643-661.
• Pimm, S. L., Ayres, M., Balmford, A., Branch, G., Brandon, K., Brooks, T., Bustamente, R., Costanza, R., Cowling, R. , Curran, L. M., Dobson, A., Farber, S., da Fonseca, G. A. B., Gascon, C., Kitching, R. L. , McNeely, J., Lovejoy, T., Mittermeier, R. A., Myers, N., Patz, J. A., Raffle, B., Rapport, D., Raven, P., Roberts, C., Rodriguez, J. P. , Rylands, A. B., Tucker, C., Safina, C., Samper, C., Stiassny, M., Supriatna, J., Wall, D. H. & Wilcove, D.  (2001)  Can we defy nature???s end?  Science (New York)  293, 2207-2208.
• Kitching, R. L., LI, D. Q. & Stork, N. E. (2001).  Assessing biodiversity ???sampling packages???: how similar are arthropod assemblages in different tropical rainforests?  Biodiversity and Conservation  10, 793-813.
• Kitching, R. L. ( 2001)  Food webs in phytotelmata: ???bottom-up??? and ???top-down??? explanations for community structure.  Annual Review of Entomology  46, 729-760.
• Fashing, N. J.,  O???Connor, B. M. & Kitching, R. L.  (2000)  Lamingtonacarus, a new genus of Algophagidae (Acari: Astigmata) from water-filled treeholes in Queensland Australia.  Invertebrate Taxonomy 14, 591-606.
• Kitching, R. L. (2000)  Biodiversity, hotspots and defiance.  Trends in Ecology and Evolution  15, 484-485.
• Kitching, R. L., Orr, A. G., Thalib, L., Mitchell, H., Hopkins, M. S. & Graham, A. W. (2000)  Moth assemblages as indicators of environmental quality in remnants of upland Australian rain forest.  Journal of applied Ecology 37, 284-297.
• Walter, D. E., Seeman, O., Rodgers, D. and Kitching, R. L. (1998)  Mites in a mist:  microhabitat distribution complementarity and body size distribution of Acari from a subtropical rainforest.  Australian Journal of Ecology 23, 501-508.
• Rodgers, D. and Kitching, R. L. (1998)  Vertical stratification of rainforest collembolan (Collembola: Insecta) assemblages:  ecological patterns and hypotheses concerning their generation. Ecography 21, 392-400.
• Clarke, C. M. & Kitching, R. L.  (1996) Swimming ants and pitcher plants: a unique ant/plant interaction from Borneo.  Journal of Tropical Ecology  11, 589-602.
• McIntyre, S., Barrett, G. W., Kitching, R. L. & Recher, H. F. (1993) Species triage - seeing  beyond wounded rhinos.  Conservation Biology  6, 604-606.
• Kitching, R. L. , Bergelson, J., Lowman, M. D. , McIntyre, S.  & Carruthers, G. (1993)  The biodiversity of arthropods in Australian rain forest canopies:  introduction, methods, study sites and ordinal results.  Australian Journal of Ecology 18, 181-191.
• Clarke, C. M. & Kitching, R. L. (1993)  The metazoan food webs from six Bornean Nepenthes  species.  Ecological Entomology  18, 7-16.
• Basset, Y. & Kitching, R. L.  (1991) Species number, species abundance and body length of arboreal arthropods associated with an Australian rainforest tree.  Ecological Entomology 16, 391-402 .
• Jenkins, B. , Kitching, R. L.  & Pimm, S. L. (1992)  Productivity, disturbance and food web structure at a local spatial scale in experimental container habitats.   Oikos  65,  249-255.
• Glasby, C.J., Kitching, R.L. and Ryan, P.A. (1990).  Taxonomy of the arboreal polychaete Lycastopsis catarractarum Feuerborn (Namanereidinae:  Nereididae); with a discussion of the species feeding biology.  Journal of Natural History 24,341-350.
• Jenkins, B. and Kitching, R.L. (1990).  The ecology of water-filled treeholes in Australian rainforests:  community re-assembly following disturbance.  Australian Journal of Ecology 15,199-205.
• Kitching, R.L. and Clarke, C.M. (1988).  Indigenous tropical ecology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 4,85-87.
• Pimm, S.L. and Kitching, R.L. (l987).  The determinants of food chain lengths. Oikos. 50,302-307.
• Pierce, N.E., Kitching, R.L., Buckley, R.C., Taylor, M.F.J. and Benbow, K. (l987).The costs and benefits of cooperation for the Australian lycaenid butterfly, Jalmenus evagoras and its attendant ants.  Behavioural Ecology and Sociobiology.  21,237-248.
• Kitching, R.L., Chapman, H.F. and Hughes, J.M. (1987).  Levels of activity as indicators of sublethal impacts of copper contamination and salinity reduction in the intertidal gastropod, polinices incei Philippi.  Marine Environmental Research. 23,79-87.
• Bayliss, M. and Kitching, R.L. (1988).  Myrmecophilous organs in the Small blue,Cupido minimus (Lepodptera: Lycaenidae).  Journal of Natural History 22, 861-864.
• Pimm, S.L. and Kitching, R.L. (1988).  Food web patterns: trivial flaws or the basis of an active research program?  Ecology 69,1669-1672.
• Hughes, J.M., Chapman, H.F. and Kitching, R.L. (l987).  Effects of sublethal concentrations of copper and freshwater on behaviour in an estuarine gastropod Polinices sordidus Swainson.  Marine Pollution Bulletin l8,l27-l3l.
• Kitching, R.L. (1987).  Spatial and temporal variation in foodwebs from water-filled treeholes.  Oikos 48,280-288.
• Kitching, R.L. (l987).  Aspects of the natural history of Allotinus major C.and R. Felder, from Sulawesi.  (Lepidoptera: Lycaenidae) Journal of natural History.  21,535-544.
• ITO, Y. and Kitching, R.L. (l986).  The importance of non-linearity: a comment on the views of Taylor. Researches on Population Ecology  28,39-42.