A global horizon scan for urban evolutionary ecology

Brian C Verrelli; Marina Alberti; Simone Des Roches; Nyeema C Harris; Andrew P Hendry; Marc T J Johnson; Amy M Savage; Anne Charmantier; Kiyoko M Gotanda; Lynn Govaert; Lindsay S Miles; L Ruth Rivkin; Kristin M Winchell; Kristien I Brans; Cristian Correa; Sarah E Diamond; Ben Fitzhugh; Nancy B Grimm; Sara Hughes; John M Marzluff; Jason Munshi-South; Carolina Rojas; James S Santangelo; Christopher J Schell; Jennifer A Schweitzer; Marta Szulkin; Mark C Urban; Yuyu Zhou; Carly Ziter

doi:10.1016/j.tree.2022.07.012

A global horizon scan for urban evolutionary ecology

Trends Ecol Evol. 2022 Nov;37(11):1006-1019. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2022.07.012. Epub 2022 Aug 19.

Authors

Brian C Verrelli¹, Marina Alberti², Simone Des Roches³, Nyeema C Harris⁴, Andrew P Hendry⁵, Marc T J Johnson⁶, Amy M Savage⁷, Anne Charmantier⁸, Kiyoko M Gotanda⁹, Lynn Govaert¹⁰, Lindsay S Miles¹¹, L Ruth Rivkin¹², Kristin M Winchell¹³, Kristien I Brans¹⁴, Cristian Correa¹⁵, Sarah E Diamond¹⁶, Ben Fitzhugh¹⁷, Nancy B Grimm¹⁸, Sara Hughes¹⁹, John M Marzluff²⁰, Jason Munshi-South²¹, Carolina Rojas²², James S Santangelo²³, Christopher J Schell²⁴, Jennifer A Schweitzer²⁵, Marta Szulkin²⁶, Mark C Urban²⁷, Yuyu Zhou²⁸, Carly Ziter²⁹

Affiliations

¹ Center for Biological Data Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA. Electronic address: bverrelli@vcu.edu.
² Department of Urban Design and Planning, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
³ School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
⁴ Applied Wildlife Ecology Lab, Yale School of the Environment, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA.
⁵ Department of Biology, Redpath Museum, McGill University, Montreal, QC H3A 0C4, Canada.
⁶ Department of Biology, Centre for Urban Environments, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, ON L5L 1C6, Canada.
⁷ Department of Biology and Center for Computational & Integrative Biology, Rutgers University-Camden, Camden, NJ 08103, USA.
⁸ CEFE, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France.
⁹ Department of Biological Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, ON L2S 3A1, Canada; Département de Biologie, Université de Sherbrooke, Sherbrooke, QC J1K 2R1, Canada.
¹⁰ Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries, 12587 Berlin, Germany.
¹¹ Center for Biological Data Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA.
¹² Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON L5L 1C6, Canada; Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, MB R3T 2N2, Canada.
¹³ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544, USA.
¹⁴ Department of Biology, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium.
¹⁵ Instituto de Conservación Biodiversidad y Territorio, Centro de Humedales Río Cruces, Universidad Austral de Chile, Valdivia, 5090000, Chile.
¹⁶ Department of Biology, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH 44106, USA.
¹⁷ Department of Anthropology, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
¹⁸ School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287, USA.
¹⁹ School for Environment and Sustainability, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109, USA.
²⁰ School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA.
²¹ Louis Calder Center & Department of Biological Sciences, Fordham University, Armonk, NY 10504, USA.
²² Instituto de Estudios Urbanos y Territoriales, Centro de Desarrollo Sustentable CEDEUS, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, El Comendador 1916, Providencia, 7500000, Santiago, Chile.
²³ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON L5L 1C6, Canada.
²⁴ Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA.
²⁵ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37917, USA.
²⁶ Centre of New Technologies, University of Warsaw, Banacha 2c, 02-097, Warsaw, Poland.
²⁷ Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology & Center of Biological Risk, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT 06269, USA.
²⁸ Department of Geological and Atmospheric Sciences, Iowa State University, Ames, IA 50011, USA.
²⁹ Department of Biology, Concordia University, Montreal, QC H4B 1R6, Canada.

PMID: 35995606
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2022.07.012

Abstract

Research on the evolutionary ecology of urban areas reveals how human-induced evolutionary changes affect biodiversity and essential ecosystem services. In a rapidly urbanizing world imposing many selective pressures, a time-sensitive goal is to identify the emergent issues and research priorities that affect the ecology and evolution of species within cities. Here, we report the results of a horizon scan of research questions in urban evolutionary ecology submitted by 100 interdisciplinary scholars. We identified 30 top questions organized into six themes that highlight priorities for future research. These research questions will require methodological advances and interdisciplinary collaborations, with continued revision as the field of urban evolutionary ecology expands with the rapid growth of cities.

Keywords: climate change; sociopolitical; sustainability; urban ecology; urban evolution; urbanization.

Publication types

Review
Research Support, U.S. Gov't, Non-P.H.S.

MeSH terms

Biodiversity
Cities
Ecology / methods
Ecosystem*
Humans
Urbanization*