Agriculture and processed food-driven evolution of small mammals
Although the agricultural practice is an anthropogenic evolutional event by itself, by the selection and creation of new plant cultivars and animal breeds, is also a major factor in the evolution of non-targeted organisms. As it offers new sources of potential food, previously not available or in insufficient quantities, it laid to the emergence of new species, adapted to these new food sources. More or less, along with the abundance of processed food, a variety of behavioral, physiological and anatomical adaptations gradually caused the evolution of new species. The current paper represents the description of several such species, along with the major adaptive mechanisms, found in them.