Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution

Schilthuizen (evolutionary biology, Leiden Univ.; Frogs, Flies and Dandelions) explores the premise that evolution can happen more quickly than even Charles Darwin imagined. Species that evolve quickly can better adapt to human-made environments in order to survive. The author travels the world looking at plants and animals that have made such rapid adaptations. His fascinating observations include French urban catfish, which can leap from the water and pull pigeons underwater for a quick meal; city pigeons with darker feathers containing melanin, which detoxifies heavy metal pollutants; Mexican birds that line their nests with cigarette butts because nicotine acts to deter mites; and beach plants that live along northern inland highways that have been salted in the winter. Illustrating such ideas as hard and soft selection, plasticity, and epigenetics, the author makes scientific concepts accessible to average readers. With his main focus on human-induced rapid evolutionary change, he notes that humans are a hyperkeystone species, forcing other living beings to adapt to us.