Biologia Futura: adaptive changes in urban populations

Abstract

Cities represent novel environments where altered ecological conditions can generate strong selection pressures leading to the evolution of specific urban phenotypes. Is there evidence for such adaptive changes in urban populations which have colonized their new environments relatively recently? A growing number of studies suggest that rapid adaptations may be widespread in wild urban populations, including increased tolerance to various anthropogenic stressors, and physiological, morphological and behavioural changes in response to the altered resources and predation risk. Some of these adaptive changes are based on genetic differentiation, although other mechanisms, such as phenotypic plasticity and epigenetic effects, are also frequently involved.