How animals and plants are evolving in cities | Menno Schilthuizen

Transcriber: Ivana Korom Reviewer: Krystian Aparta

Translator: Nathaniel Luis Reyhan Soesilo Reviewer: Lanny Yunita

This is where I grew up.

Di sini saya bertumbuh besar.

A small village near the city of Rotterdam

Sebuah desa kecil dekat kota Rotterdam di Belanda.

in the Netherlands.

In the 1970s and 1980s, when I was a teenager,

Pada tahun 1970 dan 1980, saat saya remaja, daerah itu masih sepi.

this area was still a quiet place.

It was full of farms and fields and swampland,

Daerah itu penuh dengan kebun, lapangan, dan rawa-rawa.

and I spent my free time there, enjoying myself,

Saya menghabiskan waktu luang di sana, menikmati diri saya sendiri,

painting oil paintings like this one,

melukis lukisan seperti ini, mengoleksi bunga liar, melihat burung,

collecting wildflowers, bird-watching

and also collecting insects.

dan juga mengoleksi serangga.

And this was one of my prized finds.

Ini salah satu penemuan berharga saya.

This is a very special beetle,

Kumbang sangat spesial ini namanya kumbang semut.

an amazing beetle called an ant beetle.

And this is a kind of beetle that lives its entire life

Kumbang jenis ini hidup selamanya dalam sarang semut.

inside an ant's nest.

It has evolved to speak ant.

Kumbang ini telah berevolusi untuk berbicara dengan semut.

It's using the same chemical signals,

Sinyal kimia dan bau yang sama digunakan untuk berkomunikasi dengan semut.

the same smells as the ants do, for communicating,

and right now, this beetle is telling this worker ant,

Kumbang ini sedang memberi tahu semut pekerja ini.

"Hey, I'm also a worker ant,

"Hei, aku juga semut pekerja, aku lapar, tolong beri aku makan."

I'm hungry, please feed me."

And the ant complies,

Semut menuruti kumbang karena dia memakai zat kimia yang sama.

because the beetle is using the same chemicals.

Over these millions of years,

Selama jutaan tahun, kumbang ini telah berevolusi untuk hidup dengan semut.

this beetle has evolved a way to live inside an ant society.

Over the years,

Selama di desa itu, saya mengoleksi 20.000 macam kumbang.

when I was living in that village,

I collected 20,000 different beetles,

and I built a collection of pinned beetles.

Saya membuat koleksinya dengan peniti.

And this got me interested, at a very early age, in evolution.

Ini membuat saya tertarik dengan evolusi sejak muda.

How do all those different forms, how does all this diversity come about?

Bagaimana bentuknya bisa bermacam-macam, bagaimana semua keragaman ini terbentuk?

So I became an evolutionary biologist,

Saya menjadi ahli biologi evolusioner, seperti Charles Darwin.

like Charles Darwin.

And like Charles Darwin, I also soon became frustrated

Seperti beliau, saya pun frustasi karena evolusi banyak terjadi dahulu kala.

by the fact that evolution is something that happened mostly in the past.

We study the patterns that we see today,

Kita mempelajari pola hari ini untuk memahami evolusi zaman dahulu.

trying to understand the evolution that took place in the past,

but we can never actually see it taking place in real time.

Tapi, kita tak bisa melihatnya secara langsung.

We cannot observe it.

Kita tak bisa mengamatinya.

As Darwin himself already said,

Seperti kata Darwin,

"We see nothing of these slow changes in progress,

"Kita tak melihat evolusi, hingga waktu menandai lewatnya usia."

until the hand of time has marked the lapse of ages."

Or do we?

Atau, bisakah kita?

Over the past few decades,

Beberapa dekade terakhir, ahli biologi evolusioner menyadari

evolutionary biologists have come to realize that sometimes,

bahwa evolusi berjalan jauh lebih cepat, dan sebenarnya bisa diamati,

evolution proceeds much faster and it can actually be observed,

especially when the environment changes drastically

terutama saat lingkungan berubah drastis, dan keperluan beradaptasi menjadi besar.

and the need to adapt is great.

And of course, these days,

Tentu, sekarang, perubahan drastis biasanya dibuat oleh manusia.

great environmental changes are usually caused by us.

We mow, we irrigate, we plow, we build,

Kita memotong, mengirigasi, membajak, membangun.

we pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere

Kita memompa gas rumah kaca ke atmosfer sehingga iklim berubah.

that change the climate.

We release exotic plants and animals

Kita melepas tanaman dan hewan eksotis di tempat yang tak mereka tinggali.

in places where they didn't live before,

and we harvest fish and trees and game for our food and other needs.

Kita memanen ikan, pohon, dan hewan buruan untuk makanan dan lain-lain.

And all these environmental changes reach their epicenter in cities.

Semua perubahan ini berpusat di perkotaan.

Cities form a completely new habitat that we have created.

Kota merupakan habitat buatan manusia yang sangat baru.

And we clothe it in brick and concrete and glass and steel,

Kita melapisinya dengan batu bata, semen, kaca, dan besi.

which are impervious surfaces

Itu semua adalah permukaan buatan yang menyulitkan tanaman untuk tumbuh.

that plants can only root in with the greatest difficulty.

Also in cities, we find the greatest concentrations

Dalam kota, kami juga menemukan banyak polusi kimia, cahaya, dan suara.

of chemical pollution,

of artificial light and noise.

And we find wild mixtures of plants and animals

Kami menemukan banyak macam tumbuhan dan hewan dari seluruh dunia dalam kota,

from all over the world that live in the city,

because they have escaped from the gardening

yang telah kabur dari kebun, akuarium, dan perdagangan hewan.

and aquarium and pet trade.

And what does a species do

Lalu, apa yang dilakukan sebuah spesies jika hidup di lingkungan berbeda?

when it lives in a completely changed environment?

Well, many, of course, go, sadly, extinct.

Sebagian besar, sayangnya, punah.

But the ones that don't go extinct,

Namun, mereka yang tak punah beradaptasi dengan cara-cara spektakuler.

they adapt in spectacular ways.

Biologists these days are beginning to realize

Ahli biologi saat ini sadar bahwa perkotaan mendorong maju evolusi.

that cities are today's pressure cookers of evolution.

These are places where wild animals and plants

Di sinilah hewan dan tanaman liar berevolusi dengan cepat

are evolving under our eyes very rapidly

to suit these new, urban conditions.

untuk beradaptasi dengan lingkungan perkotaan yang baru.

Exactly like the ant beetle did millions of years ago,

Sama seperti kumbang semut yang berpindah ke dalam koloni semut.

when it moved inside an ant colony.

We now find animals and plants that have moved inside the human colony

Hewan dan tumbuhan yang pindah ke dekat manusia telah beradaptasi.

and are adapting to our cities.

And in doing so,

Kami juga sadar bahwa evolusi berjalan dengan cepat tanpa perlu lewatnya usia;

we're also beginning to realize

that evolution can actually proceed very fast.

It does not always take the long lapse of ages;

it can happen under our very eyes.

ini bisa terjadi di depan mata kita.

This, for example, is the white-footed mouse.

Contohnya adalah tikus kaki putih.

This is a native mammal from the area around New York,

Mamalia ini asli dari daerah New York.

and more than 400 years ago, before the city was built,

400 tahun lalu, sebelum kota dibangun, tikus ini hidup di mana-mana.

this mouse lived everywhere.

But these days, they are stuck in little islands of green,

Namun, sekarang, mereka terjebak di daerah kecil yang berwarna hijau:

the city's parks, surrounded by a sea of tarmac and traffic.

taman kota yang dikelilingi jalan dan lalu lintas.

A bit like a modern-day version of Darwin's finches on the Galapagos.

Seperti versi masa kini burung Finches Galapagos karya Darwin.

And like Darwin's finches,

Miripnya, tikus di setiap taman mulai berevolusi.

the mice in each separate park have started evolving,

have started to become different from each other.

Mereka menjadi berbeda satu sama lain.

And this is my colleague, Jason Munshi-South,

Rekan saya, Jason Munshi-South dari Fordham University, mempelajari ini.

from Fordham University,

who is studying this process.

He is studying the DNA of the white-footed mice

Dia sedang mempelajari DNA tikus itu di taman-taman New York,

in New York City's parks,

and trying to understand how they are beginning to evolve

dan berusaha memahami bagaimana mereka mulai berevolusi di tiap taman itu.

in that archipelago of islands.

And he's using a kind of DNA fingerprinting, and he says,

Dia memakai sidik jari DNA, dan katanya,

"If somebody gives me a mouse,

"Jika saya dapat tikus tanpa tahu asalnya, dengan melihat DNA-nya,

doesn't tell me where it's from,

just by looking at its DNA,

I can tell exactly from which park it comes."

saya bisa tahu dari taman mana tikus itu."

That's how different they have become.

Begitulah betapa berbedanya mereka.

And Jason has also discovered that those changes,

Jason juga menemukan bahwa evolusinya tidak acak; semuanya punya arti.

these evolutionary changes,

are not random, they mean something.

For example, in Central Park,

Sebagai contoh, di Central Park, tikusnya punya gen yang telah berevolusi

we find that the mice have evolved genes

that allow them to deal with very fatty food.

untuk mengonsumsi makanan yang sangat berlemak.

Human food.

Makanan manusia.

Twenty-five million people visit Central Park each year.

25 juta orang datang ke Central Park tiap tahunnya.

It's the most heavily visited park in North America.

Itu taman paling ramai di Amerika Utara.

And those people leave behind snack food

Mereka meninggalkan makanan ringan, kacang, dan makanan cepat saji.

and peanuts and junk food,

and the mice have started feeding on that,

Makanan tersebut sangat berbeda dari makanan aslinya.

and it's a completely different diet than what they're used to,

and over the years,

Selama ini, mereka telah berevolusi untuk mengonsumsi makanan berlemak.

they have evolved to suit this very fatty, very human diet.

And this is another city slicker animal.

Ini adalah hewan lain yang hidup di kota.

This is the European garden snail.

Ini adalah siput taman Eropa.

A very common snail,

Siput umum yang berwarna-warni dari kuning pucat hingga cokelat gelap.

it comes in all kinds of color variations,

ranging from pale yellow to dark brown.

And those colors are completely determined

Warna tersebut ditentukan oleh DNA-nya.

by the snail's DNA.

And those colors also determine the heat management of the snail

Warnanya juga menentukan pengelolaan suhu di dalam cangkang.

that lives inside that shell.

For example, a snail that sits in the sunlight,

Contohnya, siput cangkang kuning pucat yang berjemur tak akan menyerap panas

in the bright sun,

if it has a pale yellow shell,

it doesn't heat up as much as a snail that sits inside a dark brown shell.

sebanyak siput cangkang cokelat tua.

Just like when you're sitting in a white car, you stay cooler

Ketika duduk di dalam mobil putih, Anda akan merasa lebih sejuk

than when you're sitting inside a black car.

daripada di dalam mobil hitam.

Now there is a phenomenon called the urban heat islands,

Ada fenomena bernama "urban heat islands",

which means that in the center of a big city,

artinya suhu di tengah kota besar bisa lebih panas daripada di pinggir kota.

the temperature can be several degrees higher

than outside of the big city.

That has to do with the fact

Ini terjadi karena jutaan orang berkumpul, aktivitas dan mesin-mesin membuatnya jadi panas.

that you have these concentrations of millions of people,

and all their activities and their machineries,

they generate heat.

Also, the wind is blocked by the tall buildings,

Angin juga terhalang oleh gedung tinggi; baja, bata, dan semen menyerap panas,

and all the steel and brick and concrete absorb the solar heat

and they radiate it out at night.

dan dikeluarkan saat malam.

So you get this bubble of hot air in the center of a big city,

Jadi, ada gelembung udara panas di tengah kota besar.

and my students and I figured that maybe those garden snails,

Saya dan murid saya berpikir bahwa mungkin para siput telah beradaptasi

with their variable shells,

are adapting to the urban heat islands.

dengan suhu panas tersebut.

Maybe in the center of a city,

Mungkin, di tengah kota, cangkang siput berubah untuk mengurangi panas.

we find that the shell color is evolving

in a direction to reduce overheating of the snails.

And to study this, we started a citizen-science project.

Untuk mempelajari ini, kami memulai penelitian dengan masyarakat.

We built a free smartphone app,

Kami membuat aplikasi gratis agar semua orang di Belanda

which allowed people all over the Netherlands

to take pictures of snails in their garden, in their street,

bisa memotret siput di kebun, jalan, dan pinggiran kota.

also in the countryside,

and upload them to a citizen science web platform.

Dan mengunggahnya ke platform situs sains.

And over a year, we got 10,000 pictures

Selama setahun, kami mendapatkan 10.000 foto dari Belanda.

of snails that had been photographed in the Netherlands,

and when we started analyzing the results,

Ketika kami menganalisisnya, kecurigaan kami ternyata terbukti benar.

we found that indeed, our suspicions were confirmed.

In the center of the urban heat islands,

Di pusat suhu panas, kami menemukan siput bercangkang kuning pucat.

we find that the snails have evolved more yellow, more lighter-colored shells.

Now the city snail and the Manhattan mouse

Siput dan tikus Manhattan ini hanyalah dua contoh dari daftar hewan dan tumbuhan

are just two examples of a growing list of animals and plants

that have evolved to suit this new habitat,

yang telah berevolusi untuk tinggal di habitat perkotaan kita.

this city habitat that we have created.

And in a book that I've written about this subject,

Dalam buku yang telah saya tulis tentang evolusi perkotaan,

the subject of urban evolution,

I give many more examples.

saya memberi contoh lagi.

For example, weeds that have evolved seeds

Contohnya, rumput yang bijinya berevolusi lebih mampu bertumbuh di trotoar.

that are better at germinating on the pavement.

Grasshoppers that have evolved a song

Belalang punya lagu bernada tinggi jika tinggal di dekat lalu lintas ramai.

that has a higher pitch when they live close to noisy traffic.

Mosquitoes that have evolved to feed on the blood of human commuters

Nyamuk berevolusi untuk mengisap darah manusia di stasiun metro.

inside metro stations.

And even the common city pigeon

Bahkan burung dara perkotaan telah berevolusi untuk mengeluarkan racun

that has evolved ways to detox themselves

from heavy-metal pollution by putting it in their feathers.

dari polusi logam berat dengan menaruhnya dalam bulunya.

Biologists like myself, all over the world,

Ahli biologi di seluruh dunia mulai tertarik pada proses evolusi kota ini.

are becoming interested in this fascinating process

of urban evolution.

We are realizing that we're really at a unique event

Kami sadar bahwa kita sedang berada dalam kejadian unik

in the history of life on earth.

dalam sejarah kehidupan di bumi.

A completely new ecosystem

Ekosistem baru yang sedang berevolusi dengan habitat buatan kita.

that is evolving and adapting to a habitat that we have created.

And not just academics --

Tidak hanya akademisi -- masyarakat perkotaan juga ikut serta.

we're also beginning to enlist the millions of pairs of hands

and ears and eyes that are present in the city.

Citizen scientists, schoolchildren --

Masyarakat peneliti, anak sekolah -- bersama mereka,

together with them,

we are building a global observation network

kami membangun jaringan observasi global untuk melihat langsung evolusi ini.

which allows us to watch this process of urban evolution taking place

in real time.

And at the same time, this also makes it clear to people

Dengan begitu, menjadi jelas bahwa evolusi bukan sebuah hal yang abstrak.

that evolution is not just some abstract thing

that you need to travel to the Galapagos to study,

Anda tak perlu ke Galapagos, atau menjadi ahli paleontologi

or that you need to be a paleontologist to understand what it is.

untuk memahaminya.

It's a very ordinary biological process

Ini adalah proses alami yang terjadi di tiap waktu dan tempat.

that's taking place all the time, everywhere.

In your backyard, in the street where you live,

Di taman belakang Anda, di jalan, dan tepat di luar teater ini.

right outside of this theater.

But there is, of course, a flip side to my enthusiasm.

Tapi, tentu, ada sisi lain dari antusiasme saya.

When I go back to the village where I grew up,

Ketika saya kembali ke desa, lapangan dan rawa-rawanya sudah hilang.

I no longer find those fields and swamps that I knew from my youth.

The village has now been absorbed

Desa tersebut sudah dilahap oleh kota Rotterdam yang meluas.

by the growing conglomeration of Rotterdam,

and instead, I find shopping malls

Sekarang hanya ada pusat perbelanjaan, pinggiran kota, dan jalur bus.

and I find suburbs and bus lanes.

And many of the animals and plants that I was so accustomed to

Banyak hewan dan tumbuhan juga hilang, mungkin termasuk juga kumbang semut.

have disappeared, including perhaps that ant beetle.

But I take comfort in the fact that the children growing up

Meski anak-anak di sana sekarang tinggal tanpa ditemani alam tradisional,

in that village today

may no longer be experiencing that traditional nature

that I grew up with,

but they're surrounded by a new type of nature,

saya yakin mereka juga sama tertariknya dengan ekosistem baru mereka.

a new type of ecosystem,

that, to them, might be just as exciting as the old type was to me.

They are living in a new, modern-day Galapagos.

Mereka tinggal di Galapagos masa kini.

And by teaming up with citizen scientists

Bersama masyarakat peneliti dan ahli biologi evolusioner seperti saya,

and with evolutionary biologists like myself,

they might become the Darwins of the 21st century,

mereka mungkin bisa menjadi Darwin abad ke-21 yang mempelajari evolusi kota.

studying urban evolution.

Thank you.

Terima kasih.

(Applause)

(Tepukan tangan)