S2E5 — How Cities Force Animals, Plants, and Insects to Evolve with Menno Schilthuizen, Darwin Comes to Town

This week, I am joined by Prof. Menno Schilthuizen, an evolutionary biologist at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in Leiden, bestselling author of Darwin Comes to Town, and co-founder and co-director of Taxon Expeditions, which trains citizen scientists to document biodiversity in some of the world’s most biodiverse places.

We discuss how urban life is accelerating and changing the evolution of animals, plants, and insects, why citizen scientists are the key to documenting biodiversity on a global scale, how AI-powered apps can track urban evolution, and Menno's hope for the future of merging nature, ecology, and technology.

Produced by Studio Noord Gestoord.