As Humans Change Landscape, Brains of Some Animals Change, Too

[X_Digger]

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/22/science/as-humans-change-landscape-brains-of-some-animals-change-too.html?ref=science&_r=1

Evolutionary biologists have come to recognize humans as a tremendous evolutionary force. In hospitals, we drive the evolution of resistant bacteria by giving patients antibiotics. In the oceans, we drive the evolution of small-bodied fish by catching the big ones.

In a new study, a University of Minnesota biologist, Emilie C. Snell-Rood, offers evidence suggesting we may be driving evolution in a more surprising way. As we alter the places where animals live, we may be fueling the evolution of bigger brains.

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More at the link.

I'm reminded of the stray dogs in Russia that have learned to ride the subway each day.

[Victor_c3]

1. Wow!

I would not have suspected we could see a change that drastic in only a 100 years or so in animals bigger than microbes.

[phantom power]

2. every inhabitant of a fitness hypersurface alters the surface as they navigate it

[hunter]

3. Our neighborhood coyotes are smart and nearly invisible.

A couple hundred years of being trapped or shot at by ranchers and farmers changes a species.

Those coyotes who couldn't evade the gun people did not survive. Sometimes I'll glimpse one just watching me in a calculating way. They're pretty brazen at night in suburban neighborhoods and other places where nobody is likely to shoot at them. They'll simply walk along the sidewalks while people sleep. In the Yosemite Valley they'll sometimes walk about among the tourists in the afternoon like ordinary dogs.



http://www.nps.gov/yose/blogs/Coyote.htm