following for you this hour, the un secretary general antonio would terrace his cold on rush, had not to cough this apparition, nuclear power plant from ukraine's grid. cape, says russia is planning a provocative act at the facility of next documentary on urban evolution. how animals and plants are being forced to adapt to our cities. i've been phys, all in the same time tomorrow the co furnish will have your next news updates next out. i like a vibrant habitat ended glistening place of long the mediterranean sea scene of muster. and so far, abdul karim drift along with exploring the modern lifestyles and the mediterranean,

he's ready to lead journey this week on d. w ah ah. busy busy in a lot of ways, you can think of cities as one of the largest unplanned experiments of all time with that these are places we call them extreme habitats. really, there are places where there is a lot of opportunity and at the same time there's also challenges. as all cities, sprint, how will nature respond? will plants and animals dwindle? oh, well they adapt to up in life. and what kind of new interactions will we see in the

city? in the historic french town of, i'll be biologist frederick song to keep an eye on his catfish. in 1983 fishermen released these eastern european fish into the river time to day there at the top of the river's food chain. when you seduced this fussy, non boss, this is the fascinating species because we know so little about them. there are many myths that people believe even that they eat dogs. they are many stories like this yankee of will could distill off. the biologist is interested in the behavior of the large fish that circled the reservoir basins on 5th, on a, to kentucky. but we work with fishermen to tag the fish and cala. they contacted us

after observing very strange behavior in the fish here salvage the conflict along it. cause you see, i'll be the man my landscape at the city, foster's new encounters between species leap, your ease, the ditches have never had to face predators from the water level. gallant 8th. instead they scanned the sky for birds of prey. egon, you see the pigeons approached the water to bathe and drink sometimes about mrs. the narrow strip of safe ground and touches down in open water of it with your the catfish don't really see the page and some fit, i think. but once they sense the birds movement in the water with their barble silly fuel, then they strike. i should author, ah, scientists observed the count fish's new hunting tactic for the 1st time in 2010.

here in abbey, pigeons are no longer safe on the water. the city is bringing together new predators and pray ah, for some catfish here, pigeons now account for up to 40 per cent of their prey. they're suddenly this ecological interaction, which allows for evolution to start to improve the burt catching ability of the catfish and also to improve the escape ability of the pension. so you can expect that all these new interactions are also causing new evolutionary dynamic dont', evolutionary biologist, minnow. she'll 1000 researches the adaptation of wildlife to the city. darwin's

theory he believes has gone up and ah, ebony pollution is evolutionary change. so really genetic change in wild animals and plants in cities. it's all about understanding how species will be able to survive in this very human dominated context. cities, a homo sapiens, most extreme intervention in nature with concrete and steel. we create new landscapes and alter the face of the earth. already most people live in cities rather than in the countryside. counties this influence evolution, the development of new species. what selection precious does the city create

a summer evening in the dont' capital amsterdam, in the fond l park in the center of the city biologist, men oh, shoot. how's him? uses a light trap to catch insects. oh, he's leading a citizen science project to explore urban nature ah, 4 insects and for some smaller plums. the diversity today in cities seems to be higher than in intensively managed agriculture areas. today, agricultural land to so intensively managed and every last bit of production is squeezed out of every square meter of surface area that there's no space for nature anymore in the countryside. and at the same time, cities get more, they get greener, people pay more attention to nature and to and to urban nature. so it's actually becoming a very rich environment with, with a higher by diversity than outside of the c o n. we are rapidly

losing bio diversity, both within and outside and it is for insect. the declines are particularly severe . ah, in the swiss alps, me as eric scientists filling an ultimate set up his light traps ever since humans began to light up the night. millions of nocturnal insects have been dying off every year and it's all species like this. being attracted by light is problematic because then it's confused the few short days it has is a month to lags. come light pollution is one of the major trends demands. scientists are even going, is found to describe it as an insect apocalypse. thank you. you're going to get, i think the declines we are seeing now are already quite worried. all the studies

show a 60 to 80 percent decline and biomass. how do i sometimes even in nature reserves that these are incredibly large numbers. obviously it's all in, in my childhood they used to observe much like these from the colman. i would set up this trap next to my parents house and attract months actually quite large numbers. but today i would probably not find many of them help. often i start to hit solemn thought with choices, movies, miss mcgee, living but might in fact be capable of adapting to life in the perpetual night of our fit is flowing and alternate. wanted to find out his test, subject the spindle in a month whose caterpillars develop on the european spindle tree. not of what i actually, it was a coincidence. while i was working on my ph. d thesis. every day i walked through a park that had these european spindle bushes that i noticed with these caterpillars, moths, which must have lived there for years in

a city park with permanence, light pollution in the east. i thought i could just collect them, raise them, and test how much the adult mots are attracted by light, video, locksmith and formalist. with experiments in 2006 altamont pioneered research into urban evolution, he released the mouth in a darkened room. the next morning he counted how many had flown into the line trying to save on the results showed a difference about 20 percent fewer urban lot had flown into the trump hall station around working on saturday. but i was very surprised. it was widely known that matson retracted by lights and some more than others. sheet about these differences have always been observed between different species in the whole same variations within a single species that we've never seen before. but the experiment clearly demonstrated an hereditary adaptation life in the city. direct proof of,

of an evolution for dodge biologist, men oh, shall 1000 to findings confirm a larger picture in amsterdam. he and his group of citizens, scientists debate whether we might soon observe even more and greater adaptations of animals and plants to the city. ready ready we see that evolutionary processes are starting which will eventually or who eventually produce new theses that are specialized on living in the 50 nano. she'll thompson, it's not if, but when every organism that lives in the city will show this urban evolution, these rapid changes in their behavior, in their physiology, in their appearances, to optimize their life in an urban environment. but won't elements of urban landscapes, prompt wildlife to adapt evolutionary biologists. jason

monkeys, south is an expert on animals found in the parks of new york. for years, he has been studying how rodents adapt to the city. along with human immigrants from europe, rats also voyage to the new world. today they roamed the city in subway tunnels, most native wrote in species, however, dom dan, trying to unlock crossing town. this distinction sparked the scientists interest. i used to be a tropical biologist, but then i moved to new york city for my 1st academic job after graduate school and i decided i wanted to do some local work that would be interesting to the people of new york city and to my eyes out and i, i found out that there was a small mammal living in the sense, the islands of boris and video, but as interesting. nobody's really ever looked at these. are they become a jagged different from mice outside the city or the thing that's out all started

central park opened in 873. it's still host animal species that lived here long before the city was built. right now we're in the middle of central park. we're going to be traveling to the north end of the park where there's a very nice for, it's called the northwood. and there will be setting out traps, hopefully to capture way put in my one of the things that inspired me when i 1st started this work is if you look at new york city, subway map, you see the subway lines. but then there are these large green shapes, rectangles and ovals, and so forth that are the, the parklands. and they put those on the map. so you know where they are. but you also see that they are almost like a chain of islands that are scattered in the sea of concrete and roads and buildings, and 8 and a half 1000000 people. so in a sense, if it's a species like a mouse that can't leave the 4th cross neighborhoods and buildings and roads and

make it to the other patch. it is essentially the same biologically as if they were on an island in terms of them not being able to move and spread their genes with the other patches. and these urban patches, once they become sufficiently isolated, operate like a mini galapagos and may be driving the evolution of many species that are, you know, stuck there. now, the evolutionary biologists investigating whether the white footed mice actually develop indistinct ways in each of the various pumps. would be a really nice spot for white for my they like to move next to log. so they're not completely out in the open. they might actually even be living inside this log where it's rotting or in whole of underneath the log. so this is pretty much the ideal spot. this forest is encircled by the big apple. have the mice already adapted to this unique environment? what traits do they need to survive here?

ah, no shortage of good trapping spots. later i'll be going to one of our more suburban, almost rural sites with the larger, more intact forests, less urban zation. and i'll be setting out, you know, an equal number of traps. so the hope that we catch mice there as well. jason mankey south will search within the animals genetic codes for the marcus of life in the big city. oh, i think what's been most interesting to me is thinking about how the things that we are all doing in our daily lives, where we put our garbage. what we're choosing to eat, and what we generate is ways where we choose to live, how we choose to go to work, or how to restaurant or something. all of these things we are doing are now influencing other species in a way that we're just starting to understand it. but it's not any

animals that adapt to human intervention in the natural world. plans to the same. in southern france, the yellow flowered crap. his sanctum is being studied by biologist pierre. only vh ship to dip you so does the news crept this song to is a very common species in the mediterranean regions, a kind of mediterranean dandelion from the same family from you. and it's essential advantage as a model is that it produces 2 types of seeds. would you the large ones and small ones a good dig? also, the petite, the small wild flower produces both like to see with parachutes, allowing them to glide and heavy, a seeds that simply fall to the ground. measurement of us. oh, i'm interested in the process of adaptation to an urban environment. and in particular, what happens when a species 1st arrives in the city? it is recently colonized certain areas of mold, pitying, in my comparison between rural urban populations this i focus on the traits related

to seeds, lee, k. e o glenmore, the idea of studying the adaptation of the plant to the city, came to ship to almost by chance. when he came back from abroad, he noticed the inconspicuous flowers growing in the city. aid of japan, moiety nija. i left montreal in the middle of a blizzard dodge. i took the plain for paris value and then i took the bus to downtown will kill yay! where it was sunny it with a clear blue sky is oh, of young also. and then i noticed there were crap as sunk to flowers everywhere, and those tiny urban patches. and suddenly it struck me that there was something to figure out here. demila, but i didn't yet know exactly what made lucy antique. because actually the crap, his sank to thrives in rural areas and not in the asphalt deserts of the city. a domino to ignore the predominant component in cities, especially in european cities, is concrete to children. concrete exerts a powerful, fragmenting force on the habitats of plants,

the police. they have to survive in many by a tow facility only puts a beat up. sometimes the cities constraints on a plans. habitat can be extreme. how will evolution respond? house schema domestic. i'm looking at how urban fragmentation will modify the dispersal traits of the species his best. i expect plants to produce more of the larger seeds will be more successful at reproduction in urban areas than they would be in the open country. oh, the heaviest seeds are less likely to be swept onto the asphalt. and indeed the biologists discovered that far more plants in the city produced the heavier seeds and are thus better able to survive a difference of 15 percent. but what stands out most is the speed at this adaptation infected and we're sure the avalanche and we've seen has taken about 15 years. so this is extremely brief. it was the 1st demonstration of such

a rapid evolution of sea traits for plants. and this is due to the highly fragmented composition of the urban environment to learn more gilba it, did you find more? explain why genetic changes occurring at such a rate have long been considered unlikely, even impossible by science or darwin would have been amazed by the fastness by which these changes take place. he was, he was sort of underestimating the power of natural selection himself. he said that you could never see any of these changes in progress. you cannot actually observed them. you can only deduce them from the fossils from the patterns that you see in nature. you said that evolution is too slow to see it happening in real time and effect that now today, especially in cities, we see these changes taking place under our eyes in the streets where we live right around us. i think darwin would have been thrilled by but what if man made

pollutants substantially distort the biochemistry of organisms in the 1970s, the water new bedford hava, the boston was severely polluted with p. c. b's. the u. s. environmental protection agency. wanted to know just how bad the pollution really was. the original focus was on what must be wrong with all the fish that live in that harbor because of the toxic chemicals. instead, we came here looking, trying to understand what must be right about those fish that could survive here. mm. so they've become a natural experiment for us to study how animals can adapt to toxic human made pollutants. terrific. just what we're looking for. let's get him into a net. bring him back to the lab, diana,

she had the environmental protection agency lab in narragansett, rhode island in that reading facility. the scientists want to unravel the mechanism that allows this population of kili fish species to survive in the p. c. b polluted water of new bedford harbor. let's see if they left any eggs flora. they planned to compare eggs from the new bedford hob, a fish with those of a fish population from a clean, a site blue. let's start a test and see what they do when we expose them. the chemical this killer fish species occurs all along the north american atlantic coast. the killy fish has been a favorite of biology. literally for centuries at they are quite common. they are

non migratory. so they reflect their local environments, and each population is unique, in that it is genetically different. it is an adapted to its local environment. so it gives us opportunity for lots of studies. the research as need to observe the development of the fish embryos in the ag, in order to understand at which stages the environmental talks and disrupt the animals, biochemistry or not. ah, so we'll look at the rate at which the embryo is developed in certain features that we know that p c. these can disturb, like a proper development of the heart, evidence of proper development of the circulatory system and proper body side. mm. why, of these particular fish able to resist deadly environmental talk sense?

what are the factors that allow individual species to adapt to the city? all parallel developments taking place in cities wild white at the university of toronto, mississauga, evolutionary biologist, mark johnson, pursues these questions in a lot of ways you can think of cities as one of the largest unplanned experiments of all time. the problem is that there's very few organisms where you could study annotation to urban environments on a global scale and white clover is one of those very few organisms where you can actually do that. so now this then becomes the model to understand whether organisms in general can adapt to the convergent environmental changes. so she was cities throughout the world, researches across the globe by working together in this study. i'm evolutionary

biologist, stephan guyana. and his team are collecting the white clover in berlin. in cities, the plant face is a different habitat. temperatures are higher than in the suburbs and the countryside was manhattan khan is the same. what you can expect is that as humans creates new environmental conditions, life will adopt. and to be able to show that on a global scale, that's a real scientific benefit. and that is why we're dedicating a free time to this project. you have been filed them as they proceed from the countryside to the city center of berlin, guyana, and his team collect specimens at 35 locations. this gives them a sufficiently broad range of data to compare with that of other global cit is they find a final samples at the foot of the television tower. that's it all done in all we have

a 168 cities right now and over $250.00 collaborators all working on the same project together. there's never been a collaborative project on evolutionary biology of this scale. and so this is the largest collaborative project in evolutionary biology ever. so is clover developing in the same way all over the world, into a kind of global city, clover. from the vast set of data, the research is hope to find an answer. on in the grounds of a research institute, north of new york geneticist, jason mankey south wants to catch white footed mice to compare that dna with that of those in the city. but it's not easy. ready okay, ah, so this is a trap that was opened, it didn't catch anything, obviously on the tone that it was

a map and day for with you're really surprised that almost every park was different from every other park. it's almost to the point where you could take a mouse from one park, give it to our lab, and we could just look at a small segment of his genome and tell you where it's it came from. that's how much they had changed just randomly over time from being isolated. and that's when we started our current studies looking at, you know, over 20000 genes to see what genes and potentially what functions change when they adapt to living in, inside of new york city. ah, there's one 1st wait for the math of the day. in the new study, jason mankey south and his team, i've already caught more than $100.00 mice and analyzed that genetic compositions. they tried to take their samples as gently as possible, so as not to have the animals. mm hm. we take

a jag sample in this case we will be using this small tool. it's like a paper punched, but for tissue. and we store that for genetic analysis, we want to be able to tie that tissue sample to a location because that's important for understanding how they vary when they're in a more urban or less urban population. so now they're pretty m a. well, this is a male, this young male. i why don't we take that your punch and we'll start on the other one. ah, isn't suitable for comprehensive genetic analysis. so the researchers take a tissue sample from the ear. ah, yeah, you got something? after collecting the samples and some measurements of the scientists release, the mice. genetic analysis can reveal the evolutionary

trajectories of the mice. there we go. they point to a variety of physical and behavioral changes spreading among the animals. each of them unique to the challenges of each city park environment. so we're starting to fill in our gradient really nicely. i'm so here the my c as today from the color center. and you can see it's right in between highly urbanized new york city and then all these sites we have up here and what out here. so central park seems to be our most distinct population to date. it makes sense. yeah, yeah. most urban, probably the most isolated. so if you took a mouse from central park, some of its genes will be different from a mouse outside in the countryside, in a big park some way. so for this one, particularly the food supply and central park on much of it, human food waste might have triggered

a genetic response in the city near federal park. what we've learned so far is that one set of genes that are changing in the city have to do with metabolism. so these white food of mice are eating things and they have to digest them and assimilate the nutrients. and we know it's evolution because a heritable change in dna sequences. evolution central pock my seem to have genetically altered their metabolism to better digest fast food in res several like broader questions about what we are doing as a species as we modify the earth habitat for our needs. how are we changing the future of other species? not only affecting them, but we're changing what they will become in the future. ah, never again said diane, nancy and her team are investigating how the different fish embryos exposed to the toxic p. c. b 's has developed high

going really well. so this is the study that's comparing court and creek and new bedford harbor experts to p c. b 126. so this one is the group that was treated with pcb and also from the clean site, squirt and creek. and as you can see, that you have had a pretty dramatic effect on the development, which is what we expect with these very toxic chemicals. yeah, and in my experience, when i see this, this constellation of anomalies, it's absolutely lethal. there's no way that that an animal would even hatch, nevermind, survive after hatching. if the heart is not functional and the blood is essentially not circulating around the body. so let's take a look at that biochemical end point to see if they are also responsive at the biochemical level. using a special contrast agent. the scientists can trace enzyme activity in the unhappy

fish. so you can see that the, the substrate is flora thing in the bladder showing that this enzyme system is working and we're, we're getting the expected metabolites of water. that's a very dramatic demonstration of enzyme activity in a living organism. the active enzymes in the fish embryo reveal how the organism tries to break down the thompson, but perishes in the process. then the team observes how the offspring of the fish from new bedford harbor have developed. ok, so these are fish from new bedford harbor that were exposed to the same level of p c. b that we were just looking at. as you can see what this embryo doesn't seem to have any effect, the heart is still beating normally and healthy. and it's developed really well. now, looks like an embryo that's about ready to hatch. some of them actually already patch

these fish should be dead poison by one of the most lethal environmental toxins. but life, it seems, has found away. one thing we know about this class of chemicals is that in all vertebrates cleaning people, the, it turns on a certain enzyme pathway. so normally responsive person, or in this case of fish, should have that enzyme system turned on. if they were exposed to p c b, the contrast enhanced image shows how the end times that normally respond to the toxin remain silent. so in this case, i see very little that's glowing brightly. it is a dramatic visual difference that suggests that that enzyme system is broken in the new bedford fish. the killing fish from new bedford harbor have changed their

metabolism, the poisoned can, longer hamden, but which genetic modifications lead to the fishes toxic resistance. that's why geneticist ma com of the woods whole oceanographic institute wants to find out could this be a key to understanding how nature might resist human interference. ready in that of oratory, he uses the crisper cast method. it's an incredibly powerful way to modify the genetics of an experimental fish like this to ask questions about the roles of certain genes. and in fact, the roles of even single amino acids in the protein can be investigated with this crisper passed to test their assumptions about the resistant kelly fish market and his team experiment with that profession. i want to find out exactly what are the changes in those genes and to be able to actually 0 in on the specific molecular changes that are responsible for the resistance. and to be able to recreate that in

the laboratory, to actually prove that that's the mechanism of resistance. where inserting portions of dna taken from the resistance, killing fish into embryos of that pro fish pneumonia . you good. which ones are the injecting a p exxon to. com and his colleague neil neutral are using the most up to date genetic engineering techniques. here we are interested to city a function of the g known as a p. so we are trying to delete this gene in this particular species and then tried to steady what the function of the and whether that will alter that system to p c. b in with these experiments. time is venturing deep into the source code of creation. the scientists believe this research could yield the secret of life's

ability to adapt to the most extra conditions. and this knowledge could also help other creatures to adapt and survive in a rapidly changing world. ah, i think we will understand the extent to which we can extrapolate our knowledge from the killy fish system out beyond to other fish and even other vertebrates. so a broader understanding of the toxicology of pollutants and how that will impact the natural world. how we can understand what will be the most vulnerable species. the max bank institute in potsdam, the research team processes the clover samples from the goal. to find cyanide

clever plants that produce cyanide are better protected against predators, but are less able to tolerate cold. it's warmer in city centers. so this clover might be more common than because this is a qualitative test. and i mean, we use it to indirectly detect a specific gene that generate the cyanide to come out and different office. you know, they're both rural, known in. yeah, they're both still role kind and his team send their results and other clovers specimens to mark johnson in his toronto. i again, how's it going? good. you know, how did that extraction yesterday? yeah, so remind me this is berlin and goin authorities. the team prepares the clover for gene sequencing, but the cyanide values taken by the team in germany,

show whether the clover has adapted to an oven existence already. okay, be to, did he get the data from berlin? yes, with the screen here. it is so great. thank james. have you had a chance to look at the data from berlin? so we can understand how the environments changing from downtown berlin through the suburbs and into the rural areas. we got it. all right, so let's take a look at so berlin's one of the, the cities where we see white clover adapting to urban real gradients. yeah. nice. and so now we're at about 33 percent of cities where why clover adapts. yeah. but yeah. fair enough about that. okay, so then next i think what we're gonna have to do is figure out what are the drivers, the environmental drivers of this adaptation. so that's really cool. in berlin plans from the city center, a more likely to produce cyanide, as is the case in a 3rd of the cities surveyed so far an indication of parallel evolution.

mm. some of the preliminary insights are, are fascinating. that really looks like, regardless of where you are in the world, whether you're in europe, north america, japan, china, australia, new zealand. we see the ability for this humble white clover to death to these cities in the womb that the city sinai producing clover stance a better chance of survival. but to survive in the city in organisms must adapt to higher temperatures. what scientists, school heat islands are in cities, humans and their machinery creates a lot of heat. and we have a mumble of hot air in large fifties, in a city of more than a 1000000 people can be 78 degrees south celsius halter in the center of the city

than outside of the city. this man, oh, she carson believes also influences the evolution of the white lip snail. national is coming many shades from brown to pale yellow. a single gene determines the color so they can basically carry their genes on their back. the shelf color determine the internal temperature of the sale to stomach. the difference in temperature inside can be 2 degrees under the same conditions and that could be just the difference between life or death on a hot summer day. and you know, it was 40 degrees in amsterdam a few weeks ago. it could be that some of these yellow snails survived, but many of the brown ones died because they got to help they overheated and they died. but well, the statistics support this hypothesis so

the plan is now to, to just add some data to the dataset. so let's go in order to collect and evaluate as many snouts as possible throughout europe. meadow shield housing is helped by volunteers. you know, you don't have to go through the call. i forgot to study evolution or be come apart, paleontologist is happening everywhere all the time. it's a continuous, very normal biological process. the group only find the fuse nails but even empty. now shells can also provide data photographed and added to the database with an app that anyone can install on their mobile phone. ah, if we're looking at the adaptations of urban animals and plans to the urban heat islands, which of course is happening has been happening more rapidly than global climate change. we can probably predict what's going to happen globally in response to

climate change. banana zation and climate change pose a threat to all plant and animal species, including the monarch butterfly which gather in millions in the forests of mexico. every october. they've completed a 5000 kilometer journey to their winter quarters and increasingly perilous odyssey for the insects lindsey miles studies the butterflies in toronto. monarch butterflies are these really great insect. unfortunately, right now they're in decline. the and the united states, they've experienced 80 percent population decline in this industrial area of toronto, monarch butterflies take a rest stop before flying home. they also take the opportunity to mate and reproduce. really vague caterpillar.

this is an let that baby monarch. this one's probably a day or 2 away from that going into it's chrysalis and then becoming a monarch butterfly. it's really cool. one other species had the ability to switch to other food sources. monarch butterflies remain dependent on a single plant. oh, i got one. let's check it out and found a monarch. ah, the butterflies lay the eggs on the milkweed that caterpillar's feet exclusively on these plants. and in many cities, the land on which milk weight can grow is disappearing. oh, unfortunately a lot of these cities are providing these barriers, they just don't have the resources that they need. and so it would basically be if you're driving along the road and you don't have any fuel stations and you run out

a gas, you're stuck. they're not what's happening with these butter wise. not all species can adapt. as our cities continue to expand, accommodating wild life might be crucial. how we shape on cities in the future may prove decisive for the course of life on earth. ringback biodiversity helps us with the food that we eat. it helps us with the air that we breathe. so if we continue along the path that we have many different populations including human populations, we'll start to crash. urban evolution can help us design green cities in a darwinian way. as humans become more urban, we have the potential to, you know, allow some species live in the city and adapt to our cities. but then put less pressure on the other habitats which will allow, you know, the species that can survive in the city to continue to thrive. mm. we're going to

see more and more of the realization that we are part of nature. and that's is actually probably gone to help us survive. mm mm mm. a co africa clean drinking water, hard to come by. come on to see in the slums of ne, robi, a possible solution vending machines full time. they are designed to give people

access to the precious resource in an easier and more affordable way would be now with everybody is becoming more africa. 30 minutes on d. w with hello guys. this is the 77 percent. the platform with issues and share ideas. you know, on this channel we are not afraid to talk to young people clearly have the solution . good future, you know the 77 percent every weekend on d w ah ah

ah ah ah, oh, this is steve. we news long from berlin. the un secretary general says ukraine's energy belongs to ukraine until new good terrorist calls on russia not to cut the deaf or regia nuclear plant from ukraine's power grid. something keith says moscow is plan.