Recently, Ruth Rivkin shared some of her dissertation work with the Canadian Society for Ecology and Evolution (CSEE).
Urban habitats are more fragmented and degraded than nonurban habitats, which can impact both the ecology and evolution of species interactions. Species interaction may be particularly sensitive to urbanization because the species involved may be responding to urbanization separately, and together through effects on the strength of and direction of the interaction. We studied the effects of urbanization on a mutualistic interaction and an antagonistic interaction. We measured reproductive success of Brassica rapa plants across 30 experimental sites in Toronto, ON, and tracked within-site pollen dispersal and pollinator community variation among these sites. We found that urbanization influences plants reproductive success, but whether the effects on fitness were positive or negative depended on season and pollinator dispersal. We also studied the interaction between Darwin’s finches and Tirbulus cistoides in towns on three Galápagos Islands. We tested the effects of urbanization on seed predation rates, selection on mericarp size and defense traits, and ground finch community composition across 40 sites per island. Predation rates were elevated in urban sites, which corresponded to stronger selection on mericarp morphology and altered ground finch communities due to urbanization. Together, our results demonstrate the sensitivity of the ecology and evolution of species interactions to urbanization.
You can watch the full talk here:
Featured Image: “Wild turnip / Brassica rapa L. var. nippo-oleifera / 菜の花(なのはな)” by TANAKA Juuyoh (田中十洋) is licensed under CC BY 2.0
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