A fundamental feature of urbanization is how it alters the temporal cycles (diurnal, seasonal, annual) of various ecological processes. Humans build cities to protect ourselves from the vagaries of environmental extremes, reducing variability in climate and food availability, and increasing our sense of control on our immediate environment. In the process, we also alter cycles of productivity, food availability, predation regimes, and even diurnal patterns of sound and light regimes that affect a variety of other animals inhabiting urban habitats. Some of these changes attract species into cities while others may repel them, and many species may alter their behavior and physiology to adapt to the new rhythms of city life. On a broader scale, cities vary considerably in the pace and rhythm of human transactions, which may in turn also influence resource availability patterns for other species. Cities therefore provide a rich opportunity to study the behavioral and physiological responses of animals to urbanization from an evolutionary ecological perspective. This talk will synthesize some of the recently published and ongoing research capitalizing on this opportunity to understand how animals adapt (or not) to city life under these novel selection pressures.
Results/Conclusions
Recent studies show a range of responses to the rhythms of city life across spatial and temporal scales : 1) urban heat islands and year round food availability alters the breeding phenology of many species, causing potential mismatches between neuroendocrine mechanisms evolved to respond to specific environmental cues and optimal timing of reproduction in novel urban habitats; 2) warmer cities with predictable food supplies also changes patterns of seasonal migration for many species, especially at northern latitudes; 3) nocturnal urban lighting alters the foraging behavior of bats, singing behavior of birds, and confuses migrating birds; 4) urban metabolism (driven by pace of human life) scales with the size and population density of a city, which may affect the behavior and physiology of animals adapting to human subsidies in terms of food and shelter in cities. Some of these rhythms of city life also vary culturally, potentially providing a range of evolutionary outcomes for urban adapting species. Understanding how animals may adapt to these somewhat more subtle aspects of urbanization can help us improve the design and management of urban ecosystems and biodiversity as we attempt to become stewards of the so-called Anthropocene.