We are marching towards a future in which three-quarters of humans live in cities more than
half of the landmass of the planet is urbanized and the rest is covered by farms pasture and
plantations. Increasingly as we become ever more city-centric species and ecosystems crafted
by millions of years of evolution teeter on the brink of extinction - or have already
disappeared. A growing band of 'urban ecologists' is beginning to realize that natural
selection is not so easily stopped. They are finding that more and more plants and animals are
adopting new ways of living in the seemingly hostile environments of asphalt and steel that we
humans have created. Carrion crows in the Japanese city of Sendai for example have learned to
use passing traffic to crack nuts for them otters and bobcats no longer persecuted by humans
are waiting at the New York City gates superb fairy-wrens in Australia have evolved different
mating structures for nesting in strips of vegetation along roads while distinct populations
of London underground mosquitoes have been fashioned by the varied tube line environments.
Menno Schilthuizen shows us that evolution can happen far more rapidly than Darwin had dared
dream.
