Evolution in an Urbanizing World
The European Starling Sturnus vulgaris Ever had such a fondness for an author, that you wanted to recreate what they wrote, in real life? That’s exactly what Eugene Schieffelin did with the European Starling in Central Park, NYC, when he decided to introduce as many of the birds mentioned in Shakespeare’s works to North America... Continue Reading →
Monk parakeets Myiopsitta monachus Sometimes referred to as the Quaker parrot due to their quaking vocalizations, the monk parakeet is a small, green parrot with grey breast and head feathers accented with blue feathers on their primaries. In addition to their unique color, these birds can often be picked out by their noisy/screechy vocalizations.... Continue Reading →
This new feature on the blog will focus on urban introduced species across the globe, giving brief histories of where they came from, how they got where they are now & more on their ecology and evolution. The Gold Dust Day Gecko Phelsuma laticauda Best known for the starring role as the “Geico” gecko, the... Continue Reading →
In August 2020, I recently published my first first-author paper about urban Anolis lizard claws! I have previously written about my research after doing field work and presenting at my university's science symposium. I'm excited to report that the results are finally out! In our paper, The Finer Points of Urban Adaptation, myself and my coauthors (Kevin... Continue Reading →
A recent paper in Scientific Reports, "Of city and village mice" by Dammhahn et al (2020), investigated the behavioral responses of striped field mice (Apodemus agrarius) to urbanization. The ability for an animal to adjust their behavior to a novel environment can contribute to survival in urban habitats, with the possibility of local adaptation to... Continue Reading →
Pathogens are organisms that cause disease, and zoonotic pathogens are those that can be transmitted between animals and people. Where pathogens are found can be determined by environmental changes. Urbanization is known to mediate environmental changes in cities as well as impact biodiversity. In Brazil, Belo et al. (2011) found a higher prevalence of parasites... Continue Reading →
This week's post comes from Dale Stevens, who tells us about the effects of elevated urban temperatures on black widow spiders. Along with landscape changes, urbanization also leads to a significant increase in temperature. Human-made surfaces retain heat during the day and stay hot well into the night. Because of this, animals that thrive in... Continue Reading →
When was the last time you cleaned your bird feeder? Bird feeders are a common sight in the city. For many, they represent a chance to view nature from the comfort of their own home, with little else required but to go out each morning to fill the feeder in their pajamas. This gives city... Continue Reading →
Ecomorphology describes how an animal’s physical traits (called morphology) match how it uses its habitat. It is assumed that ecomorphology results from performance-morphology relationships across different habitats. For instance, running speed (a measure of performance) could be affected by limb length (a measure of morphology), but this relationship varies based on habitat (e.g. type of... Continue Reading →
What is urbanization and how do we, as urban evolutionary biologists, ecologists, and conservation biologists, define this metric? We've written about this topic before and a new paper by Remington Moll et al. titled "What does urbanization actually mean? A framework for urban metrics in wildlife research" takes a deep dive into defining urbanization. Generally,... Continue Reading →
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