News Life

Cities create accidental experiments in plant, animal evolution

From clover to lizards, a city’s nonhuman residents evolve in human-scale time

Anolis cristatellus

GOING TO TOWN  After generations of city life, widespread tropical lizards Anolis cristatellus and white clover are not quite the same the same as their country cousins, though not always in the way scientists expect.

Geoff Gallice/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0); Frank Vincent/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0 migrated)

By Susan Milius

- More than 2 years ago

AUSTIN, TEXAS — Cities have become great unintentional experiments in evolution.