Climate Change May Be Driving Evolution

According to Charles Darwin, natural selection is a slow and gradual process. He believed that evolution doesn’t advance through sudden leaps, and that species require several decades and hundreds of generations to adapt.

Now some scientists believe that climate change may be speeding up evolution, causing plants and animals to adapt more quickly. As part of our next green thing series, we’re taking a look at how species like field mustard and red squirrels are responding to changing temperatures.

Carl Zimmer writes about science for The New York Times and Discover Magazine, and he joins us to talk about how these plants and animals may be adapting to climate change.

Yale Environment 360: First Comes Global Warming, Then An Evolutionary Explosion

(Photo by Keith Barlow via Flickr/Creative Commons)