Evolution in an Urbanizing World
Many birds nest in and around human-made structures, taking advantage of windowsills, air vents, rooftops, and just about anywhere that looks like a cozy and safe spot. Previously, we've highlighted birds nesting in some strange locations: rooftops, building nooks, and even cars! Add to the list: the underside of decks. Our urban observation of the... Continue Reading →
Interactions between the introduced European honey bee and native bees in urban areas varies by year, habitat type and native bee guild Kit S Prendergast, Kingsley W Dixon, Philip W Bateman Abstract European honey bees have been introduced across the globe and may compete with native bees for floral resources. Compounding effects of urbanization and... Continue Reading →
Today we are excited to launch a new section of the site on urban eco-evo literature! You'll notice that along with this post today a handful of other "new literature alert" posts also were published. Instead of just tweeting the cool urban ecology and evolution papers we hear about, we will post the abstract and... Continue Reading →
Phenotypic response to a major hurricane in Anolis lizards in urban and forest habitats Kevin J Avilés-Rodríguez, Kristin M Winchell, Luis F De León, Liam J Revell Abstract Little is known about the synergistic impacts of urbanization and hurricanes on synanthropes. We compared morphological traits of the lizard Anolis cristatelluson Puerto Rico sampled before the 2017 category... Continue Reading →
Fine scale genetic structure in fire salamanders (Salamandra salamandra) along a rural‑to‑urban gradient G. Yannic, V. Helfer, R. Sermier, B. R. Schmidt, L. Fumagalli Abstract Delineating population boundaries in anthropogenic landscape is of critical importance for domains of biology that are concerned with the ecology, evolution and conservation of species. This remains particularly difficult for species where there is... Continue Reading →
Urban living influences the nesting success of Darwin’s finches in the Galápagos Islands Johanna A. Harvey, Kiley Chernicky, Shelby R. Simons, Taylor B. Verrett, Jaime A. Chaves, Sarah A. Knutie Abstract Urbanization is expanding worldwide with major consequences for organisms. Anthropogenic factors can reduce the fitness of animals but may have benefits, such as consistent human food availability. Understanding anthropogenic... Continue Reading →
We are happy to share today some fantastic news about our LITC crew: LITC co-founder, Elizabeth Carlen, passed her dissertation defense today on urban evolution in pigeons! And one of our top contributors (and my academic sibling), Kevin Avilés-Rodríguez, also passed his dissertation defense this past friday on the interacting effects of hurricanes and urbanization in Anolis... Continue Reading →
Cities are hot. Because of the urban heat island effect, urban environments tend to be significantly warmer than nearby non-urban environments. For ectothermic organisms, like lizards and insects, elevated urban temperatures create thermally stressful conditions. It might be unsurprising then that researchers have documented an increase in thermal tolerance in urban animals (e.g., City Ants... Continue Reading →
Given the right conditions, life in the city might just lead to speciation. Wouter Halfwerk digs into the potential for and evidence of urban speciation in his latest paper in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution. Halfwerk points out that many studies have revealed both genetic and phenotypic divergence in urban populations, but asks are we seeing... Continue Reading →
What makes a bird successful in the city? Jakob Mueller and colleagues first attempted to answer this question in blackbirds, finding genomic signatures of selection in the SERT gene associated with harm avoidance. Now, building on only a handful of studies to explore the genomic basis of urban adaptive responses, Mueller and colleagues tackle this... Continue Reading →
James Baxter-Gilbert and colleagues from down under — Julia Riley and Martin Whiting — have been digging into the ecological and evolutionary responses to urbanization in a charismatic and common (at least if you're in Australia) group of lizards: Australian water dragons (Intellagama lesueurii). Previously, we told you about their findings that urban dragons are innately bold. In... Continue Reading →
The long-awaited first textbook on urban evolution, Urban Evolutionary Biology, was released this summer. This fantastic text features chapters written by several of the contributors to this blog, and came together with the hard work of three urban evolution researchers: editors Marta Szulkin, Jason Munshi-South, and Anne Charmantier. We got together (virtually) with Marta, Jason, and... Continue Reading →
New Orleans is a great city — good food, good people, good drinks. But the best part about New Orleans? LIZARDS! Keep your eyes open and you're likely to see lizards crawling on the trees, fences, buildings, and trashcans. Two species are common to the city: Anolis carolinensis, which are native to the Southeast USA,... Continue Reading →
One of the outstanding questions in urban evolutionary biology is whether there are universal or predictable responses to urbanization, and if so, what factors influence urban tolerance. As small-bodied ectotherms, reptiles are particularly sensitive to many of the challenges of urban life. For example, reptiles appear to be more sensitive to habitat fragmentation than birds,... Continue Reading →
It's turtle hatchling emergence time in Massachusetts, as this recent article in The Boston Globe pointed out! And right on cue, this week I came across two tiny hatchling turtles running the gauntlet across the bike path in Boston's Emerald Necklace to get to the water. Both turtles are native species to Massachusetts: the Painted... Continue Reading →
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