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If we are to avoid the worst effects of global heating, with around half the world’s population said by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to be highly vulnerable, it is imperative to make drastic changes to our global energy system.
政府间气候变化专门委员会认为，全球约有一半的人口极易受到影响，如果我们要避免全球变暖的最坏影响，就必须对我们的全球能源系统做出重大改变。
Brown rats in New York City may be evolving smaller rows of teeth. Tiny fish across the Eastern US have adapted to thrive in polluted urban waters. Around the globe, living things are evolving differently in cities than in the surrounding countryside. It’s happening in plants: White
clover
in downtown Toronto is less likely than clover in surrounding rural areas to produce a cyanide that deters
herbivores
—a trend mirrored in cities in many countries, a new study finds.
纽约市的棕色老鼠可能正在进化出更小的牙齿。美国东部的小鱼已经适应了在污染的城市水域中生存。全球来看，城市里的生物进化方式与周围乡村地区的生物进化方式不同。这种情况也发生在植物上：一项新的研究发现，与周围乡村地区的三叶草相比，多伦多市中心的白三叶草产生氰化物的可能性更小，这种氰化物可以抵挡食草动物——这一趋势在很多国家的城市中都存在。
All are examples of urban evolution: genetic changes that may help living things adapt to life in big city environments. “A city changes an environment dramatically. It creates a completely novel ecosystem,” says Marc Johnson, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Toronto Mississauga.
这些都是城市进化的例子：基因变化可能有助于生物适应在大城市环境中的生活。“城市可以极大地改变环境。它可以创造一个全新的生态系统，”多伦多大学密西索加分校的进化生态学家马克·约翰逊说。
The city is also the fastest-growing ecosystem on the planet, home to more than half of the world’s people.
So perhaps it’s no surprise that studying the evolution of species in urban settings, a
field
that barely existed at the start of the millennium, now is a focus for many biology labs.
城市也是地球上增长最快的生态系统，世界上一半以上的人都生活在城市中。
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Cities can act as
test beds
to address longstanding questions in evolution. Do different populations of the same species evolve in similar ways when faced with the same environmental pressures? And do different species in the same locations evolve similar characteristics? Many environmental factors are similar across thousands of cities, says Johnson: things like higher temperatures, pollution and habitats fragmented by buildings and roads. But cities also differ in age, amount of green space, climate and more.
城市可以作为解决进化中长期存在的问题的试验台。当面临相同的环境压力时，同一物种的不同种群是否按照相似的方式进化？同一地点的不同物种是否会进化出类似的特征？约翰逊说，在几千个城市当中，很多环境因素是相似的：如温度升高、污染和由于建筑物和道路导致的栖息地分割。但城市在年龄、绿地数量、气候等方面也有差异。
Observing how creatures respond to urban life also may help to improve conservation management or pest control, and to plan cities with functioning ecosystems that are environmentally more robust and better places for people to live. And urban evolution may hold hints about our future world. “Cities are kind of the key for understanding responses to global climate change,” says Sarah Diamond, an evolutionary ecologist.
观察生物如何对城市生活做出反应，可能有助于改善环境保护管理或害虫防治，并规划具有功能性生态系统的城市，这些生态系统在环境上更加有活力，是对人们来说更宜居的环境。进化生态学家莎拉·戴蒙德说：“城市是理解全球气候变化反应机制的关键。”
本文节选自：Scientific American（科学美国人）
发布时间：2022.03.25
作者：Eric Bender, Knowable Magazine
原文标题：Urban Evolution: How Species Adapt to Survive in Cities
音标/ˈhɜːbɪˌvɔː/
n.[动] 食草动物
