Theses

Evolution in the Cornbelt: How a Few Special Species Are Adapting to Industrial Agriculture

June 10, 2016

In the Corn Belt, today’s scientists can see evolution in real time.

Over the last 150 years, humans have wrought sweeping changes to the Great Plains. What was once the prairie is now the Corn Belt-row crops planted from fencerow to fencerow. What does this mean for the native wildlife, which evolved for millions of years to live only on the prairie? Here are the stories of three species-cliff swallows, western corn rootworms, and prairie deer mice-that natural selection has reshaped to thrive in the new agricultural landscape. With his finches, Charles Darwin read the record of evolution in the past. In the Corn Belt, today’s scientists can see evolution in real time.

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Tagged asbiology Corn Belt evolution Great Plains wildlife

Written by

Conor Gearin

Conor Gearin is a writer, editor and digital media producer from St. Louis living in Rhode Island. He's a Digital Producer for BirdNote, where he helps create daily radio programs about birds as well as the Threatened and Bring Birds Back podcasts. His work has appeared in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2019, The Atlantic, Undark, The Millions, The New Territory, New Scientist, and elsewhere. He co-created and co-hosted the BioGenesis podcast with fellow GPSW alum Raleigh McElvery. He received an S.M. in Science Writing at MIT and an M.S. in Biology at the University of Nebraska Omaha, where he completed thesis research on grassland bird conservation. He writes a newsletter about local wildlife and landscapes called Possum Notes. Favorite bird? Common Yellowthroat.