• iNaturalist: Track Life in the City Near You!

    iNaturalist: Track Life in the City Near You!

    Many people don’t think about cities as great places to observe wildlife, and most people have no idea what plants and animals live in the city with us! Say you’re walking around in the city and you see an interesting plant…

  • Wherefore and Whither the Non-urban Areas?

    Wherefore and Whither the Non-urban Areas?

     Posted by: Brian C. Verrelli, Virginia Commonwealth University, USA The esteemed evolutionary biologist Douglas J. Futuyma once famously wondered “Wherefore and whither the naturalist?”  in pondering the role of naturalists and the future of natural history studies. It is hard…

  • Friendly Neighborhood Spiders

    Friendly Neighborhood Spiders

    If you live in Europe or North America, chances are you have seen the species I have studied in my most recent paper at least once. The cross spider (Araneus diadematus) makes big beautiful orb webs, can easily be recognized…

  • It’s Lit in the City

    It’s Lit in the City

    Night life in the city can be much brighter and artificial lighting can  be a significant source of new evolutionary directions for city dwellers. A recent study by Hopkins et al. (2018) researchers reviewed how Artificial Light At Night (ALAN) can drive…

  • Proc. B Special Issue: City Ants Adapt to Hotter Environment

    Proc. B Special Issue: City Ants Adapt to Hotter Environment

    In their recent contribution to the special issue on urban evolution in Proceedings B, Sarah Diamond and team share their exciting results on detecting parallel and non-parallel physiological responses to the urban heat island in acorn ants (paper here). This is…

  • Special Feature in Proceedings B

    Special Feature in Proceedings B

    Articles in the special feature used a diverse set of study organisms to explore the effects of urbanization on evolutionary patterns and processes. (a) Yellow jasmine (Gelsemium sempervirens, photo: Wikimedia Commons). (b) Great tit (Parus major, photo: Wikimedia Commons). (c)…

  • Is Anthropogenic Food Waste Driving the Evolution of Urban Animals?

    Is Anthropogenic Food Waste Driving the Evolution of Urban Animals?

    If you spend a lot of time in cities you’re probably used to seeing animals feeding on garbage. From city-dwellers who intentionally place stale bread crumbs outside for birds to the pesky raccoons that seem to be able to get…

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