BBC: Changes to their surroundings can trigger "rapid evolution" in species as they adopt traits to help them survive in the new conditions, a study shows.
Studying soil mites in a laboratory, researchers found that the invertebrates' age of maturity almost doubled in just 20-or-so generations.
It had been assumed that evolutionary change only occurred over a much longer timescale.
The findings have been published in the journal Ecology Letters.
"What this study shows for the first time is...