Evolution of Wildlife in a City Environment

A group of scientists went to Highbridge Park in Washington Heights, New York to study wildlife in a city environment. Among them were biologist Jason Munshi-South, Stephan Harris, a PhD candidate in biology at CUNY, and Erin Dimech, a master's student in conservation biology at Columbia.
To carry on their research, they set up one hundred red flags in park and beside each there were rectangular boxes baited with bird seeds which were used as a trap to catch mice. Munshi-South and his colleagues caught many white-footed mice in NYC's remaining spots of greenery and took snips of their tails, from which they could extract DNA.
As part of their research, they knew that before the 1700s white-footed mice (Peromyscus leucopus) roamed the vast woodlands that once covered NYC. But New York City's expansion sliced up that native habitat into scattered fragments of greenery, isolating numerous groups of mice. Such geographic isolation drives evolution and can even split a single species into two.
After their research, they found out that the geographic isolation and the environmental changes led mice in different part of the city to have different traits that enabled it to survive in its environment. Munshi-South and his colleagues found that the different groups of white-footed mice in the city varied a lot genetically.
They also found that the white-footed mice as a whole seem to be evolving new traits that mice from rural areas outside the city lack. For example, some mice had genetic mutations that help them neutralize toxic metals in polluted soil or speed up their sperm in response to the sexual competition in their overcrowded metropolitan homes.
Munshi-South predicted that these mice might not be the only ones that have been throught evolution in the city environment. Rats in NYC for example, have become more genetically distinct from one another on a block-by-block and seem to be resistant to rat poison used by people to kill rats.
Other scientists have also found evolution taking place in many cities around the world. At Bernard, Rebecca Calissi has found out the city life changes pigeon's brain and their immune system.Researchers in Australia have discovered that golden-orb weaving spiders living in cities have evolved bigger bodies and larger ovaries for increased reproductive capacity. And biologists in Netherlands have learned that birds in urban areas sing at a higher pitch to be heard.

This article relates to our unit of evolution in many ways. First, this article is about the evolution of wildlife in a city environment. We have learned that the result of natural selection is adaptation and natural selection in the cause of evolution. In the case of the white-footed mice in the article, the mice which traits that are better suited to the city environment survive and are able to reproduce more. This cause more mice with the certain trait to arise. The article also shows that during the process of evolution, species can divide into several groups by chance. As NYC expanded, the habitat of white-footed mice got split apart and this geographic isolation of mice is causing them to evolve separately. Therefore, the article shows an example of the process of evolution which we are studying this unit.

Work Cited 

Jabr, Ferris. "Urban Ecologists Are Studying How Wildlife Have Evolved to Fit Their City Environment, Block by Block." Daily Intelligencer. New York Media LLC., 07 Jan. 2015. Web. 11 Jan 2015. <http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/uptown-mice-are-different-from-downtown-mice.html?mid=emailshare_dailyintel>.