Cities as ‘Powerhouses of Evolution’

At National Geographic, Simon Worrel interviews Menno Schilthuizan, an evolutionary biologist in field of urban ecology whose most recent book, Darwin Goes to Town, is about why and how natural selection of wild species occurs more rapidly inside of cities than outside of them.

“This is what we call HIREC, or human-induced rapid evolutionary change. We see that in cities and also in other environments where humans create a new habitat or ecological situation. In those places you see very, very fast evolutionary adaptations, which can take place in the space of decades or even years.”

The piece covers mosquitoes in the London Underground, bobcats in Los Angeles and plants in Montpellier, France, all of which are species that have evolved very quickly and in very discrete populations (like north and south of the 101) to better survive urban environments.