Cities create novel conditions that differ from natural or rural environments, so that special adaptations may be required from individuals that live there. A key question is whether such urban adaptations arise once, and then spread to other cities, or arise repeatedly in different cities. Thomas Merckx, together with a team of international colleagues, studied this in two common European insects: the small heath butterfly and the latticed heath moth. Our analyses suggest that urban adaptations have multiple origins in both species. Yet, the two species’ population histories differ: small heath populations show clear genetic differences, while latticed heath populations are genetically much more similar across Europe.
Read the article in Proceedings B: