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Legacy effects of religion, politics and war on urban evolutionary biology

Nature Cities volume 2, pages 593–602 (2025)Cite this article

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Abstract

Urbanization has been a defining feature of the past four centuries, with most of the global population now living in highly modified environments shared with wildlife. Traditionally, biological urban evolutionary research has focused on physical factors such as habitat fragmentation, pollution and resource availability, often overlooking the social and political forces shaping urban environments. This Review explores how religion, politics and war drive urban wildlife evolution by shaping environmental conditions and selective pressures. We synthesize existing knowledge on these influences and propose testable hypotheses to advance the field. Understanding these dynamics is essential for explaining the variability in urban evolutionary processes and predicting the future development of urban systems. By integrating social and political dimensions, we can gain deeper insights into how cities shape the evolution of organisms that inhabit them.

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Fig. 1: Religious sites and practices can affect the evolutionary potential of urban wildlife.
Fig. 2: Political systems affect urban design, including the amount and distribution of green areas across the urban matrix.
Fig. 3: War decreases tree cover in cities, which is likely to decrease gene flow and increase genetic drift.

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Acknowledgements

This collaboration resulted from discussions within the Urban Eco-Evo Research Coordination Network funded by NSF, award number DBE-1840663. We thank C. Car for feedback on the war section, and A. Gosler, A. M. McMahon, C. J. Schell, C. Schmidt and members of the Losos lab for feedback on earlier versions of this paper.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Living Earth Collaborative, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Elizabeth J. Carlen

  2. Department of Biology, Washington University in St. Louis, St. Louis, MO, USA

    Elizabeth J. Carlen & Lauren E. Johnson

  3. Department of Biology, University of Toronto-Mississauga, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada

    Aude E. Caizergues

  4. Institute of Evolutionary Biology, Faculty of Biology, Biological and Chemical Research Centre, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, Poland

    Zuzanna Jagiello, Ignacy Stadnicki & Marta Szulkin

  5. Frankfurt Zoological Society, Lviv, Ukraine

    Hanna Kuzyo

  6. Deparment of Biodiversity, Earth and Environmental Science, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Jason Munshi-South

  7. Department of Urban Design and Planning, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    Marina Alberti & Anna N. Malesis

  8. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Gestão e Tecnologia Ambiental, Universidade Federal de Rondonópolis, Rondonópolis, Brazil

    Fabio Angeoletto

  9. Research Center for Territory and Sustainable Habitat, Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica, Machala y Sabanilla, Quito, Ecuador

    Santiago Bonilla-Bedoya

  10. Department of Entomology, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

    Warren Booth & Lindsay S. Miles

  11. Centre d’Ecologie Fonctionnelle et Evolutive, Univ. Montpellier, CNRS, EPHE, IRD, Montpellier, France

    Anne Charmantier

  12. Department of Biology, University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS, USA

    Jennifer M. Cocciardi

  13. Department of Environmental Science, Barnard College, New York City, NY, USA

    Elizabeth M. Cook

  14. Department of Biological Sciences, Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada

    Kiyoko M. Gotanda

  15. Leibniz Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin, Germany

    Lynn Govaert

  16. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Daijiang Li

  17. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Ella Martin

  18. School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA

    John M. Marzluff

  19. Department of History, Columbia University, New York City, NY, USA

    Małgorzata Mazurek

  20. Department of Biology, Drexel University, Philadelphia, PA, USA

    Megan Phifer-Rixey

  21. Centro de Investigación de la Biodiversidad y Cambio Climático, Facultad de Ciencias del Medio Ambiente, Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica, Machala y Sabanilla, Quito, Ecuador

    David Salazar-Valenzuela

  22. Department of Biology, Rutgers University-Camden, Camden, NJ, USA

    Amy Savage

  23. Center for Computational and Integrative Biology, Rutgers-Camden, Camden, NJ, USA

    Amy Savage & Meredith Willmott

  24. School of Life Sciences, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, USA

    Rebecca Snyder

  25. Department of Urban Environmental Engineering and Management, O.M. Beketov National University of Urban Economy in Kharkiv, Kharkiv, Ukraine

    Yuriy Vergeles

  26. School of Life Sciences and Sustainability, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA, USA

    Brian C. Verrelli

  27. Department of Biology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Daniel A. Villar

  28. Department of Anthropology, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Daniel A. Villar

  29. Department of Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa

    Matthew Wilhelm-Solomon

  30. Department of Biology, New York University, New York City, NY, USA

    Kristin M. Winchell

  31. Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Shannan S. Yates

  32. Department of Geography and Institute for Climate and Carbon Neutrality, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China

    Yuyu Zhou

  33. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

    Colin J. Garroway

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  1. Elizabeth J. Carlen
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  2. Aude E. Caizergues
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M.S. conceived the paper with input from E.J.C. and C.J.G. E.J.C. and M.S. collaboratively developed the overarching themes, and E.J.C., A.E.C., Z.J., H.K. and J.M.-S. coordinated the writing of individual sections. All authors contributed to the development of the paper, including literature reviews and writing.

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Correspondence to Elizabeth J. Carlen, Colin J. Garroway or Marta Szulkin.

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Carlen, E.J., Caizergues, A.E., Jagiello, Z. et al. Legacy effects of religion, politics and war on urban evolutionary biology. Nat Cities 2, 593–602 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44284-025-00249-3

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