Evolution in an Urbanizing World
Urban life is often described as a fast-paced and frantic thing. But one of my favourite study species, the urban snail, is the living proof you can take your time and still enjoy what your city has to offer. I have been studying the brown garden snail Cornu aspersum, specifically its dispersal behaviour, since my... Continue Reading →
As a scientist that works in the field of urban evolution I often have to consider, "what makes an urban habitat?" While this seems like a fairly easy question to answer, there's actually a lot of different ways that we consider urban habitats. Are neighborhood parks considered urban habitat? Technically, yes they are urban, they... Continue Reading →
As life scientists that choose to study species within a city – habitats that are dominated by stochasticity, ecological traps, and, well, humans – we’re sort of like the crazy cousins at the biological sciences family reunion. Indeed, studying a system in which humans are both the drivers and beneficiaries of environmental change can throw... Continue Reading →
Last summer, a group of scientists researching different aspects of urban ecology and evolution got together at the University of Toronto Mississauga to discuss trends in this young field in a symposium aptly titled, "Synthesis in the City" organized by Marc Johnson. We (pictured above, including several contributors to this site) spent two days sharing our... Continue Reading →
Other posts here at Life in the City have covered the perils, issues, and occasional awkwardness of urban fieldwork from the perspective of the researcher, but have you considered how your naive undergraduate field technician is going to fare when thrown into the urban jungle? After going into the field now a couple of times... Continue Reading →
My eyes are instinctively drawn to a black, blue, and snow white flurry of movement. A reflex hammer to my naturalist’s knee. The subject of my fascination springs a brisk two-footed hop-scotch, just ahead along a ribbon of green separating parking lot from bustling sidewalk in downtown Calgary. The throng of oncoming foot-traffic ignore the... Continue Reading →
Sophie Breitbart, PhD student at University of Toronto Mississauga, tells us about her experience in the field working on milkweed. I'm sitting in the railway station Got a ticket to my destination... -Simon and Garfunkel, “Homeward Bound” Who would’ve thought that a young Paul Simon could have so much in common with a perennial herb... Continue Reading →
Posted by Ruth Rivkin (PhD candidate at University of Toronto Mississauga) We’ve all been there: You’re hard at work sampling on someone’s lawn, in a ditch next to the road, or in a public park, when suddenly you hear a voice shouting “Hey you, what the @#$% are you doing over there?!” So now you... Continue Reading →
Continuing our coverage of the recent Proc. B Special Issue on urban evolution, James Santangelo (PhD candidate at University of Toronto Mississauga) tells us about his recent manuscript: One of the outstanding questions in evolutionary biology concerns the extent to which different species — or different populations of a single species — evolve the same genes or... Continue Reading →
Collecting samples in urban environments can present some challenges (as Matt Combs describes in "The Good, The Bad, and The Smelly" and Jane Remfert describes in “Urban Residential Field Tip”). As someone working on pigeons in Northeastern cities, I’ve encountered problems while simply trying to collect my samples. Many ornithologists use mist nets, but these... Continue Reading →
In cities the number and types of predators drastically differ from nearby rural and "natural" areas. This often means that the biggest threat prey species have to face in cities are domestic predators (dogs and cats) or generalist "mesopredators" like raccoons, coyotes, or foxes. That is, unless you consider the threat from humans, and in... Continue Reading →
In my recent contribution to the special issue on urban evolution in Proceedings B, my co-authors and I share our findings on contrasting patterns of gene flow (paper here). This is one of several posts on the recent special issue on urban evolution in Proceedings B. Urbanization in the Western United States is significantly rapid... Continue Reading →
I live in New York City, “city that never sleeps,” where you can get a manicure at 11pm, a haircut at 1am, and a slice of pizza at 3am. While it may be normal for people to be out and about at all hours of the day, I was surprised when I was walking home,... Continue Reading →
I've spent years trapping rats across Manhattan in New York City as I study the urban evolution and ecology of brown rats (Rattus norvegicus). This fieldwork has led to many experiences, some good, some bad, and some smelly. Below are my thoughts about each. THE GOOD: The lunch…New York City provides endless opportunities for good eats... Continue Reading →
Many people don't think about cities as great places to observe wildlife, and most people have no idea what plants and animals live in the city with us! Say you’re walking around in the city and you see an interesting plant or animal that you want to identify. Without a guidebook or nature expert, it’s likely... Continue Reading →
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