New research conducted by evolutionary biologists worldwide paints cities as evolutionary “change agents,” says a trio of biologists from the University of Toronto who selected and edited the studies.
A compilation of 15 new research papers, published as a special issue of Proceedings of the Royal Society B, confirms that cities frequently alter evolution by natural selection and species are adapting to cities worldwide. As well, new commensal species – those that live alongside humans – have arisen in response to the environmental demands and challenges imposed by urbanization.
“These papers greatly advance our knowledge of urban evolutionary biology,” says Marc Johnson, an associate professor of biology at University of Toronto Mississauga and director of the Centre for Urban Environments. “These are the same evolutionary mechanisms first identified by Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago and the findings from these studies will be increasingly important as more and more of the world’s population flocks to urban environments.
“It’s pretty remarkable. For years, biologists ignored cities, seeing them as ‘anti-life’ – and only recently biologists began to realize that cities are agents of change, driving evolution of organisms living around us and even some living on us.”
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Image via University of Toronto.