Darwin comes to town : how the urban jungle drives evolution Cover Image

Book

Darwin comes to town : how the urban jungle drives evolution / Menno Schilthuizen.

Summary:

"With human populations growing, we’re having an increasing impact on global ecosystems, and nowhere do these impacts overlap as much as they do in cities. The urban environment is about as extreme as it gets, and the wild animals and plants that live side-by-side with us need to adapt to a whole suite of challenging conditions: they must manage in the city’s hotter climate (the “urban heat island”); they need to be able to live either in the semidesert of the tall, rocky, and cavernous structures we call buildings or in the pocket-like oases of city parks (which pose their own dangers, including smog and free-rangingdogs and cats); traffic causes continuous noise, a mist of fine dust particles, and barriers to movement for any animal that cannot fly or burrow; food sources are mainly human-derived. And yet, as Schilthuizen shows, the wildlife sharing these spaces with us is not just surviving, but evolving ways of thriving."-- Publisher.

Record details

ISBN: 9781250127822
Physical Description: viii, 293 pages : illustrations ; 25 cm
Edition: First U.S. edition.
Publisher: New York : Picador, 2018.
Copyright: ©2018.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Formatted Contents Note:

City portal -- I. City life. Nature's ultimate ecosystem engineer ; The ant(hropo)-hill ; Downtown ecology ; Urban naturalists ; City slickers ; If I can make it there -- II. Cityscapes. These are the facts ; Urban myths ; So it really is ; Town mouse, country mouse ; Poisoning pigeons in the park ; Bright lights, big city ; But is it really evolution? -- III. City encounters. Close urban encounters ; Self-domestication ; Songs of the city ; Sex and the city ; Turdus urbanicus -- IV. Darwin city. Evolution in a telecoupled world ; Design it with Darwin -- Outskirt.