New research suggests that the Delmar Divide, a socioeconomic and racial dividing line in St. Louis, not only separates people, it segregates wildlife.
“We think of wildlife as removed from humans — because they’re wildlife — [but] they’re not, in fact, removed from humans,” said St. Louis scientist Elizabeth Carlen. “They’re living with us, alongside us, and the things that we are doing as humans are having impacts.”
The Washington University postdoctoral fellow’s research on how human-driven changes to urban environments shape the evolution of wildlife was recently published in the journal Nature Cities. Her study of some of St. Louis’ most common residents, eastern gray squirrels, demonstrates the phenomenon.
“We’re finding pretty significant [genetic] differences in north city squirrels versus south city squirrels,” Carlen said, adding that these are preliminary findings that are not yet published. “We were very surprised by this, and so we’re continuing to test our models to make sure that is real and not just an accident of sampling.”…