Abstract
Many of the choices humans make with regard to infrastructure, urban planning and other phenomena have impacts that will last thousands of years. This can readily be seen in modern cities in which contemporary streets run along street grids that were laid out thousands of years prior or even in which ancient viaducts still play a role. However, rarely do evolutionary biologists explicitly consider the future of life likely to be associated with the decisions we are making today. Here, we consider the evolutionary future of species in cities with a focus on the origin of lineages and species. We do so by adjusting evolutionary predictions from the theory of island biogeography so as to correspond to the unique features of cities as islands. Specifically, the species endemic to cities tend to be associated with the gray habitats in cities. Those habitats tend to be dominated by human bodies, pet bodies and stored food. It is among such species where the origin of new lineages is most likely, although most research on evolution in cities has focused on green habitats. We conclude by considering a range of scenarios for the far future and their implications for the origin of lineages and species.
Highlights
Cities are growing both in number and in size, with dozens of cities containing more than 10 million people (United Nations Statistics Division, 2017) and new megacities predicted in the coming decades (Terando et al, 2014)
We conclude by discussing the implications of our understanding of the origin of species in cities through the use of “scenario thinking.”
In the context of climate change, climate scientists have elaborated a variety of scenarios with regard to the key actions humans might take and how those actions will affect climate (Leggett et al, 1992; van Vuuren et al, 2011)
Summary
Many of the choices humans make with regard to infrastructure, urban planning and other phenomena have impacts that will last thousands of years This can readily be seen in modern cities in which contemporary streets run along street grids that were laid out thousands of years prior or even in which ancient viaducts still play a role. We consider the evolutionary future of species in cities with a focus on the origin of lineages and species. The species endemic to cities tend to be associated with the gray habitats in cities Those habitats tend to be dominated by human bodies, pet bodies and stored food. It is among such species where the origin of new lineages is most likely, most research on evolution in cities has focused on green habitats. We conclude by considering a range of scenarios for the far future and their implications for the origin of lineages and species
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