Download PDF Darwin Comes to Town: How the Urban Jungle Drives Evolution, by Menno Schilthuizen

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Review

“Natural selection is occurring all around us, and, as Darwin Comes to Town explains, increasingly because of us. Menno Schilthuizen introduces us to such rapidly-evolving creatures as urban lizards and city-dwelling mice. The result is a lively and fascinating book.”―Elizabeth Kolbert, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Sixth Extinction“Not only is evolution a real thing (something that, pathetically, one still needs to point out), and not only is it an ongoing process (rather than a phenomenon of the distant past), but some of the fastest, most interesting evolving occurs right under our noses, in our cities. In Darwin Comes to Town, Menno Schilthuizen explores the ways in which animals and plants have rapidly evolved to adapt to the opportunities and exigencies of urban niches. This is a fun, witty, thoroughly informative read.”―Robert M. Sapolsky, New York Times bestselling author of Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst“In a conversational style as appealing as it is informative, Schilthuizen...explores myriad ways in which plants and animals have adapted to modern urban environments....Schilthuizen is careful throughout to distinguish between true evolutionary changes and learned behaviors passed between individuals. He also does a superb job of introducing important ecological principles along the way, leaving readers with a fascinating question: ‘Can we harness the power of urban evolution to use it to make more livable cities for the future?’”―-Publishers Weekly *STARRED REVIEW*“In this delightful account...readers who assume that pigeons, cockroaches, and rats are the only representatives of city biology will learn that it is far more complex.... An expert romp through urban natural history.”―Kirkus Reviews *STARRED REVIEW*“Darwin Comes to Town is a brilliant reproach to all the biologists who believe that their true calling is to study the ‘vanishing quantity of unspoilt nature’ ― the dwindling areas of forest and wilderness little touched by human activity ― and who neglect the more exciting evolutionary change taking place in the towns and cities where most of them live.”―Clive Cookson, Financial Times“Schilthuizen is taking on three centuries of literature and polemic that defends the virtues of rural nature against the vices of city life.... This is a spellbinding and important book.... The message is thrilling.”―Bryan Appleyard, The Sunday Times (UK)“An entertaining look at how wildlife is rapidly adapting to urban habitats, offering fascinating examples from across the globe.”―Frannie Jackson, Paste Magazine “The 25 Most Anticipated Books of 2018”“Replete with fascinating facts and written in delightfully lively prose, Schilthuizen’s work willappeal to nature lovers and popular-science fans.”―Carl Hays, Booklist“While most of us are painfully aware of the negative effects that the heavy foot of progress has had on the natural world, especially in the part we call the built environment, nature refuses to go away. In fact, human activity has created a plethora of new opportunities for wildlife to survive and thrive in our presence. Darwin Comes to Town contains a wonderfully written, highly accessible collection of extraordinary examples, illustrating the breadth and depth of the concept of the ‘plasticity of adaptation’ that wildlife has demonstrated time and again, as we continue to reshape the natural world to our own requirements. It’s a great read and a real eye-opener for those who still wonder how white-tailed deer, raccoons, opossum, and a wealth of other ‘wild’ species of birds, mammals, and reptiles can carve out niches for themselves among the traffic jams and tall buildings of the modern metropolis and its suburbs.”―Dr. Dickson Despommier, author of The Vertical Farm: Feeding the World in the 21st Century“Darwin Comes to Town casts a radical new light on the way we should think about evolution: that it is not always a slow, lumbering process measured in millions of years, but, in fact, something that can take place at relative light speed under certain circumstances. Say, when it must adapt to the ecological pressures put on its habitat (a planet) dominated by human action, and, specifically, the frenzy of the urban landscape. Menno Schilthuizen makes an extraordinarily convincing and elegant argument that, inside the restless laboratory of the modern city, nature has already begun to adapt and engineer its own urban ecosystems. But, significantly, that it is up to us to embrace, harness, and enable these natural forces for the future.”―Jay Kirk, author of Kingdom Under Glass“Think our slick, hard-edged cities defy nature? In Darwin Comes to Town, the metropolis is just one more wilderness, where undeterred evolution fits ever-new forms to the cityscape, from toes to microbiomes to elaborate and beguiling new behaviors. The savage force and delicate subtlety of adaptation are engagingly unveiled in Menno Schilthuizen’s potent stories of evolution in the Anthropocene.”―Dr. Richard Granger, Director of the Brain Engineering Lab at Dartmouth College

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About the Author

MENNO SCHILTHUIZEN is a senior research scientist at Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands and professor of evolutionary biology at Leiden University. The author of more than 100 papers in scientific literature, he has also written more than 250 stories, columns, and articles for publications including New Scientist, Time, and Science. A frequent guest on radio and television, he is the author of three previous books: Frogs, Flies and Dandelions (2001), The Loom of Life (2008), and Nature’s Nether Regions (2014). Together with Iva Njunjic, he runs Taxon Expeditions, which organizes scientific expeditions for laypeople.

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Product details

Paperback: 304 pages

Publisher: Picador; Reprint edition (April 2, 2019)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 125012784X

ISBN-13: 978-1250127846

Product Dimensions:

5.8 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches

Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review:

4.5 out of 5 stars

19 customer reviews

Amazon Best Sellers Rank:

#221,510 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

In 1971, when the Devil was still a little boy, I published a semi-popular article called "Urban Ecology in Search of Itself." I argued that ecologists should spend a bit less time in the virgin forest and a bit more dallying with that "fallen woman," the urban vacant lot. This was not out of the blue. I had grown up with John Kieran's "Natural History of New York City" (even though I was in Philadelphia) and was now teaching ecology in the City University of New York and supervising student projects in the "wilds" of Staten Island. Only a few years before I had been doing population studies of weedy butterflies in a grungy railroad yard in South Camden, New Jersey, one of the grungiest places in America. Most of my colleagues were focused on wilderness and the tropics. Now, suddenly, urban ecology is "hot." One of the reasons for that is the recent recognition that evolution can occur very rapidly in novel environments--such as those we create. The first convincing demonstration of that was industrial melanism. To hear creationists tell it even today that is still the only demonstration of evolution in action--and to them it isn't even evolution, since peppered moths are still moths: they didn't turn into kangaroos or tree ferns. In fact, well-documented cases of rapid evolution have proliferated greatly, and many are in urban environments. In 2016 Springer published "Ecology and Conservation of Birds in Urban Environments." Just this year (2018) there have been important symposia on "Behavioral and Physiological Adaptations to Urban Environments" and "The Evolution of City Life." The August 16 issue of "The Atlantic" had a big story on the behavioral evolution of fishing cats in Sri Lanka. And so on.Schilthuizen has written a book for the sophisticated lay reader, but it is also a good "read" for the pros -- we may know most of the stories in it but not all of them, and it is helpful to have them packaged coherently like this. Adaptation to urban environments generally entails what Dan Janzen has called "ecological fitting"--a sort of preadaptation in which species encounter a new context and just fit right in. But as this book shows, they often proceed to get even better at dealing with it. The most important message can be found on p.9: "We must realize that outside of pristine areas, traditional conservation practices (eradicating exotic species, vilifying "weeds" and "pests") may in fact be destroying the very ecosystems that are going to sustain humankind in the future....We must embrace and harness the evolutionary forces that are shaping novel ecosystems right here, right now." I need to qualify that optimism, however. Adaptation to the man-made environment is no guarantee of long-term success in a world that is changing as rapidly as ours. The exotic house crows of Rotterdam were an incipient success, exterminated deliberately as a perceived potential pest. A small black butterfly called the "Common Sooty Wing" used to indeed be so common as to be viewed as a "junk species" by American Lepidopterists. It bred on pigweeds in urban vacant lots from coast to coast. It has now disappeared from much of its range for no obvious reason (neither pigweeds nor vacant lots are in short supply). The Checkered White that swarmed by thousands in my South Camden rail yard has done likewise and is now considered extinct in several states. So "Darwin Comes to Town" brings a message of optimism, but it is guarded optimism. Enjoy urban wildlife while you can. It may not last--nor may we. Some 70 years ago Loren Eiseley wrote "Sometimes I think I can feel the pressure of mice waiting in the walls of old houses. They are waiting for us to go away."PS: The N.Y. Obhukova cited for pigeon research on p.128 is almost certainly a "she," not a "he."

Interesting book; I'm a physician so I read biology w discernment; while this book is appropriate for non-specialists, I find it very satisfying in a relaxing (I'm not going to get tested on this information) way; it is well written, just a little provocative, and profoundly informative. If you want help understanding the ways in which our world is changing, this is a great place to start.

Evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen explores the effect of humans and our cities on the environment in his book When Darwin Comes to Town. Darwin originally described evolution as a slow process, taking millenia to instill the changes tracked through time. In this book, Schilthuizen outlines the relatively short time it has taken for many common species (crows, lizards, mice, etc.) to adapt due to the evolutionary pressure of human urbanization. He argues that humans should be seen as part of the ecosystem as a whole and that we should start to ask the question: how can we design urban environments to best support our ecosystem?I read this book in a single day, which I never do with nonfiction. It helped that evolution is an enthralling subject that I have a passion for (I took an entire class on it in college for goodness sake). However, I would attribute my enjoyment of this book more to Schilthuizen's writing. It was almost conversational in nature and felt like you were having a chat over coffee and not reading a book. Schilthuizen was able to describe complex evolutionary and biological mechanisms in a very understandable manner. His use of clever and insightful anecdotes provided a story that made this book utterly readable. The concepts are explained in such a manner that someone without a scientific background would not be lost in technical drivel.I was most affected by the discussion of humans as part of the ecosystem as a whole, rather than set apart. We are an evolutionary pressure and what we do truly does matter. I gave the book 4 stars because I felt it glossed over much of the bad to focus on the successes. There are far more species that have not adapted due to human urbanization than have. We really do need to remember that.When Darwin Comes to Town is a phenomenal read for anyone interested in basic evolutionary theory and how human advancement can lead to advancement of other species too. It has made me look at our resident morning doves (we have named them Harold and Ramona and they are in love) in a completely new light, wondering if they have changed in the past decades to know precisely where to poop on our balcony to make it most inconvenient to clean... although that may not be a genetic change...

I learned many new facts. Every bit of it is well researched and sourced. This is a serious work and well worth reading. I love the humor that makes it entertaining to read. There is much to study and learn in urban ecology and we are introduced to many new possibilities and surprises.

From a biologist's perspective, a very easily accessible catalog of evolutionary evidence happening right in front of and because of us! A holistic approach to the ever changing biosphere. This book will force the reader to examine his or her environmental ethics and relationship with the natural world. An entertaining read as well, the author shares with us his sometimes humorous observations. HIGHLY RECOMMEND!

Will definitely be using this in my university level ecology course

a big fat boar!

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