Same species, different city: Is nature losing its local accent?

Human activity is reshuffling biodiversity globally, allowing a relatively small group of adaptable species to spread widely, while more specialised species decline

Gulls have become commonplace in cities across the world and have adapted their diets to include chips and bread and other human foods.Picture: iStock

YOU fly halfway across the world, wander into a city square, look around, and there they are again: Pigeons, marching about like they own the place; gulls plotting the theft of someone’s chips; and somewhere nearby, very likely, a rat conducting quiet, but determined, business. You could be in Dublin, New York, Singapore, or Sydney. The architecture changes, the language changes, the coffee certainly changes, but the wildlife stays the same.

Ecologists have started noticing this, too. Increasingly, ecosystems around the world are beginning to resemble one another. The same adaptable species appear again and again, while many of the more specialised ones quietly disappear. Some scientists have begun referring to this emerging ecological pattern as the ‘Homogenocene’, a world where biodiversity is becoming increasingly uniform. It’s not an official term, but the idea reflects a well-documented phenomenon known as biotic homogenisation.