How are species adapting to urban conditions?

Biologists are looking at how species are changing to meet the opportunities or constraints of urban conditions. Rivkin et al (2018) compiled a list of scientific papers published to document selection associated with urbanization:

Nature in the City

"It's wonderful to see what happens when we make nearby nature in the city more accessible to people. This is what we do. We get people, especially urban kids, outside." - Ken Leibach

Urban Ecology: A Natural Way to Transform Kids, Parks, Cities, and the World, 2018, Morgan James Publishing

A roadmap for urban evolutionary ecology

“Urban ecosystems are rapidly expanding throughout the world, but how urban growth affects the evolutionary ecology of species living in urban areas remains largely unknown. Urban ecology has advanced our understanding of how the development of cities and towns changes environmental conditions and alters ecological processes and patterns. However, despite decades of research in urban ecology, the extent to which urbanization influences evolutionary and eco‐evolutionary change has received little attention. The nascent field of urban evolutionary ecology seeks to understand how urbanization affects the evolution of populations, and how those evolutionary changes in turn influence the ecological dynamics of populations, communities, and ecosystems. Following a brief history of this emerging field, this Perspective article provides a research agenda and roadmap for future research aimed at advancing our understanding of the interplay between ecology and evolution of urban‐dwelling organisms. We identify six key questions that, if addressed, would significantly increase our understanding of how urbanization influences evolutionary processes. These questions consider how urbanization affects non‐adaptive evolution, natural selection, and convergent evolution, in addition to the role of urban environmental heterogeneity on species evolution, and the roles of phenotypic plasticity vs adaptation on species’ abundance in cities. Our final question examines the impact of urbanization on evolutionary diversification. For each of these six questions, we suggest avenues for future research that will help advance the field of urban evolutionary ecology. Lastly, we highlight the importance of integrating urban evolutionary ecology into urban planning, conservation practice, pest management, and public engagement.”

From: Evolutionary Applications Pub Date : 2018-11-12 , DOI: 10.1111/eva.12734

L. Ruth Rivkin; James S. Santangelo; Marina Alberti; Myla F. J. Aronson; Charlotte W. de Keyzer; Sarah E. Diamond; Marie‐Josée Fortin; Lauren J. Frazee; Amanda J. Gorton; Andrew P. Hendry; Yang Liu; Jonathan B. Losos; J. Scott MacIvor; Ryan A. Martin; Mark McDonnell; Lindsay S. Miles; Jason Munshi‐South; Robert Ness; Amy E.M. Newman; Mason R. Stothart; Panagiotis Theodorou; Ken A. Thompson; Brian C. Verrelli; Andrew Whitehead; Kristin M. Winchell; Marc T. J. Johnson

Green. Global. Connected.

Big shout out to Sydney, Australia for their visionary urban ecology plans. Sustainable Sydney 2030 is striving to be a leader in urban environmental performance with efforts towards reducing carbon emissions, and creating a network of green infrastructure to reduce energy, water and waste water demands. Check out their urban ecology strategic action plan at https://www.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/vision/towards-2030/sustainability/urban-ecology/urban-ecology-action-plan#page-element-dload