Thought this might be interesting. Several of you ecologists have probably heard of this, but I just found out.
On livescience.com today, they had an article on how Pheonix was changing the local ecosystem. Just recently, there was one on how New York City is doing the same, and it's though that almost all of the major cities are affecting the ecosystem, creating waht some call "designer ecosystems".
Pheonix is the interesting case--the animals and plants starting to live around Pheonix are new to the area, or at least several are. ANd this is a new ecosystem, the effect beginning with the post-WWII buildup of suburbs. What I'm wondering is this:
Populations change relatively little in an environment that they are well adapted to. However, the ecosystem is in te process of radically changing in Pheonix. I'm wondering--are we building an evolution factory by changing the selection pressures?
All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences
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