Lizards that once dwelled in forests but now slink around urban areas have genetically morphed to survive life in the city, researchers have found.
He said he was impressed that the scientists were able to detect such a clear genomic signature of adaptation: “The ultimate goal within the field of urban adaptive evolution is to find evidence for heritable traits and their genomic architecture.”“If urban populations are evolving with parallel physical and genomic changes, we may even be able to predict how populations will respond to urbanization just by looking at genetic markers,” she said.
The scientists chased after dozens of lizards for their study, catching them with their hands or using fishing poles with a tiny lasso to snag them.On occasion, they had to ask permission to catch lizards off people’s homes. The study focused on adult male lizards, so it’s unclear if females are changing in the same way or at the same rate as males, and at which point in a lizard’s life the changes are occurring.
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