For a city squirrel in hip downtown Montreal, gray coats are decidedly in.
Research on eastern gray squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) in the Quebec city has revealed that the level of forest cover and other factors related to urbanization dictate their likely coat pattern.
Gray coats are hippest in Montreal, for example, but some neighborhoods take a different view on the prevailing look. Parts of the city with cooler winter temperatures and more forest cover inspired squirrels in those areas to don black coats. It was mostly the squirrels in the more urbanized, hotter areas that took the stance that gray was the new black.
“People often think of cities as a single type of environment, but our findings show that the conditions animals experience can vary dramatically from one neighborhood to another,” said Allison Roth, the study’s senior author, who was a postdoctoral fellow in biology at McGill University during the time of data collection. “These local differences, along with barriers such as rivers, can shape how wildlife populations evolve, which means we need to look beyond simple urban-rural comparisons to understand adaptation in cities.”
