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Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover
Journal article   Peer reviewed

Global urban environmental change drives adaptation in white clover

James S. Santangelo, Rob W. Ness, Beata Cohan, Connor R. Fitzpatrick, Simon G. Innes, Sophie Koch, Lindsay S. Miles, Samreen Munim, Pedro R. Peres-Neto, Cindy Prashad, …
Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science), Vol.375(6586), pp.1275-1281
18/03/2022
PMID: 35298255

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Abstract

Multidisciplinary Sciences Science & Technology Science & Technology - Other Topics
Urbanization transforms environments in ways that alter biological evolution. We examined whether urban environmental change drives parallel evolution by sampling 110,019 white clover plants from 6169 populations in 160 cities globally. Plants were assayed for a Mendelian antiherbivore defense that also affects tolerance to abiotic stressors. Urban-rural gradients were associated with the evolution of clines in defense in 47% of cities throughout the world. Variation in the strength of clines was explained by environmental changes in drought stress and vegetation cover that varied among cities. Sequencing 2074 genomes from 26 cities revealed that the evolution of urban-rural dines was best explained by adaptive evolution, but the degree of parallel adaptation varied among cities. Our results demonstrate that urbanization leads to adaptation at a global scale.

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