Darwin assumed that evolution is too slow to be observed directly by humans. Wrong, say a group of biologists.

Menno Schilthuizen from the University of Leiden explores how cities create new species.

(Image: Jan Schilthuizen)

Anyone who wants to know something about evolution can hardly avoid one example: the Darwin’s finches. The animals first made their way to the remote Galapagos Islands two to three million years ago. They were created relatively recently by volcanism – possibly by a storm. Because the birds found virtually no competition on the virgin islands, they were able to occupy a wide variety of niches in the ecosystem. At least 14 Different species have emerged in this way – depending on which plants predominated locally and how big and hard their seeds were, which served the birds as main food.

But Darwin assumed that such evolutionary processes only become apparent in periods far beyond our lifetime: “We only notice something of these slow, steady changes when the hand of time shows the passing of entire epochs,” he wrote 1859 in his main work “About the Origin of Species”. Thousands or even millions of years would have to pass. This is how the following experts saw it. After all, evolution on the Galapagos is still not complete. But as apt as Darwin’s theory of evolution is, “this time he was wrong,” says the Dutch evolutionary biologist Menno Schilthuizen from the University of Leiden.

“Evolution can take place much faster than we long thought . Sometimes the changes become clear within a few decades or even years. And we find the best examples of this in our cities. ”You don’t have to travel to the Galapagos to observe speciation. It takes place in the middle of the place where we live and work. “And with turbo drive”, says Schilthuizen.

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