Hello and welcome to our blog!
Who we are: Life in the City is written and edited by scientists who study the impacts that urbanization has on evolutionary processes for species who live in or near cities. Founding editors are: Lindsay Miles (postdoc, University of Toronto), Elizabeth Carlen (PhD Candidate, Fordham University), and Kristin Winchell (postdoc, Washington University).
What we do: Our goal is to disseminate new scientific research, natural history anecdotes, and a wide range of other urban evolution-related information for researchers and for non-scientists interested in the urban animals around them.
We envision blog posts falling into several categories ranging from casual observations to in-depth explanations of new research. As of now, these are the categories we imagine most posts will fall into, although we are open to suggestions for others!
- Natural history notes
- Notes from the field
- Conference proceedings
- Citizen science
- Invited guest posts on special topics of interest
- New research
- How-to
- New research tools
Why we do this: Urbanization, the rapid process of building and expanding cities, has become a major player in changing natural ecosystems. Because of the drastic changes that urbanization imposes on natural landscapes, species must also change to keep up with this new, challenging environment. The field of urban evolution seeks to understand how and why some species do well in the urban environment and others do not. This field of study is relatively new: the earliest papers date back to the late 90’s and the field has recently taken off with more and more scientists exploring this topic. There is a lot we still don’t know about urban evolution and we’re excited to have you come along as we discover more about the urbanizing world.
Want to get involved? We would love to have you contribute to our blog! Reach out here in the comments, or email Kristin (kmwinchell@wustl.edu) to get on board.
I am interested in urban ecology and evolution. Urbanization can have drastic impacts on local ecosystems, both negative and positive, and creates a new environment for organisms to experience. To understand the impacts that urbanization plays on organisms, I look through the lense of population genetics and molecular evolution.
- Urban Observation of the Week: Golden Jackal - July 28, 2021
- Urban Observation of the Week: Bellflowers in Munich - July 21, 2021
- Urban Observation of the Week: So Many Plants - July 14, 2021
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