Road to Evolution

Road to Evolution

CAMPUS

EUREKA!

[NEW FINDINGS AND RESEARCH]

Driving steers adaptation.

Roads and highways can drive rapid evolutionary shifts in animal populations, according to ecologist Steven Brady, a former post-doc in the department of biological sciences. Brady’s study, published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, found that roadside animal populations tend to decrease in size but may increase in fitness, in terms of adaptive traits, relative to more distant populations. “The things we do to the planet—even when they seem minimal, like a road through a forest—are not only causing this impact on how well a population does, but it’s fundamentally changing the biology of the organisms that live there,” says Brady. With global road coverage projected to increase 60 percent by 2050, Brady says further research into the impact of road development on the natural world is necessary.

Painful Link

Opioid use linked to mental illness.

Individuals with mental health disorders are more likely than other patients to be prescribed opioids, says a recent study from Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center and University of Michigan. Researchers led by Geisel professor Brian Sites focused on the prevalence of opioid use among the 38.6 million Americans suffering from anxiety or depression. Of that group, they concluded, adults with mental illness were more than three times as likely to use prescription opioids. Sites speculates that individuals with mental illness feel pain more acutely than those without, which may lead doctors to prescribe opioids at a higher rate. The findings are published in the July issue of Journal of the American Board of Family Medicine.