Urban Evolutionary Biology

Abstract

Evolutionary biology is faced with perhaps one of the greatest challenges since Darwin’s formulation of the theory of evolution: the emergence of cities as novel agents of evolutionary change. In his historical voyage to the Galapagos Islands, Charles Darwin was astonished by the diversity of life he found in this unique place on Earth; but more than the diversity, what most surprised Darwin was that many of the birds, which varied from island to island, were indeed originally from one single species. Each bird population had adapted to its island’s unique environmental niche, and, over time, the populations varied significantly from each other. Darwin was witnessing evolution by natural selection and the origins of new species.