The Complexity of Urban Eco-evolutionary Dynamics
Journal article

The Complexity of Urban Eco-evolutionary Dynamics

  • Alberti, Marina Department of Urban Design and Planning, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
  • Palkovacs, Eric P Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology,University of California, Santa Cruz, California
  • Roches, Simone Des University of Washington, Seattle, Washington
  • Meester, Luc De Leibniz Institut für Gewässerökologie und Binnenfischerei, Berlin, Germany, and with the Institute of Biology at Freie Universität Berlin, also in Berlin, Germany
  • Brans, Kristien I Laboratory of Aquatic Ecology Evolution, and Conservation, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Leuven, Belgium
  • Govaert, Lynn Department of Evolutionary Biology and Environmental Studies, University of Zurich, Zurich, Switzerland; with the Department of Aquatic Ecology, in the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, in Dübendorf, Switzerland; and with the University Research Priority Programme on Global Change and Biodiversity at the University of Zurich, in Zurich, Switzerland
  • Grimm, Nancy B Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona
  • Harris, Nyeema C Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan
  • Hendry, Andrew P Department of Biology, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada
  • Schell, Christopher J Department of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences, University of Washington Tacoma, Tacoma, Washington
  • Szulkin, Marta University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland
  • Munshi-South, Jason Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station, Fordham University, Armonk, New York
  • Urban, Mark C Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut
  • Verrelli, Brian C Center for Life Sciences Education, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia
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  • 2020-8-26
Published in:
  • BioScience. - Oxford University Press (OUP). - 2020, vol. 70, no. 9, p. 772-793
English Abstract
Urbanization is changing Earth's ecosystems by altering the interactions and feedbacks between the fundamental ecological and evolutionary processes that maintain life. Humans in cities alter the eco-evolutionary play by simultaneously changing both the actors and the stage on which the eco-evolutionary play takes place. Urbanization modifies land surfaces, microclimates, habitat connectivity, ecological networks, food webs, species diversity, and species composition. These environmental changes can lead to changes in phenotypic, genetic, and cultural makeup of wild populations that have important consequences for ecosystem function and the essential services that nature provides to human society, such as nutrient cycling, pollination, seed dispersal, food production, and water and air purification. Understanding and monitoring urbanization-induced evolutionary changes is important to inform strategies to achieve sustainability. In the present article, we propose that understanding these dynamics requires rigorous characterization of urbanizing regions as rapidly evolving, tightly coupled human–natural systems. We explore how the emergent properties of urbanization affect eco-evolutionary dynamics across space and time. We identify five key urban drivers of change—habitat modification, connectivity, heterogeneity, novel disturbances, and biotic interactions—and highlight the direct consequences of urbanization-driven eco-evolutionary change for nature's contributions to people. Then, we explore five emerging complexities—landscape complexity, urban discontinuities, socio-ecological heterogeneity, cross-scale interactions, legacies and time lags—that need to be tackled in future research. We propose that the evolving metacommunity concept provides a powerful framework to study urban eco-evolutionary dynamics.
Language
  • English
Open access status
closed
Identifiers
Persistent URL
https://folia.unifr.ch/global/documents/119708
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