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Video Q&A ViewAttendees 5

Plant-Insect Ecosystems

Section Symposium

Herbivory Through the Ages: Understanding Patterns of Insect Damage Through Space and Time On-Demand Presentations

Herbivory and evolution of defence along environmental gradients big and small

On-Demand
On-Demand

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Marc Johnson

    Professor
    University of Toronto
    Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Urbanization is a global phenomenon that dramatically alters the environment, but the consistency of this change across cities, and how it affects the evolution of species is poorly understood. We studied how urbanization across 160 cities on all inhabited continents affects environmental change and evolution of the globally distributed plant white clover. Urbanization caused convergent environmental change - cities in different parts of the world tended to be more similar and less variable than nearby nonurban habitats. This urban environmental change drove parallel evolution in an ecologically important trait of white clover in 35% of cities. Urban evolution was driven by urban-nonurban gradients in winter vegetation and snow cover, but the strength and direction of parallel evolution depended on regional aridity. Our results show that urbanization causes environmental homogenization on a global scale, which can be a potent driver of evolution.