科学美国人60秒 SSS 树懒逐渐改为白天活动

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Emily Schwing.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是埃米莉·施温。

Somewhere in this forest you hear, there are sloths². Those sloths live in Brazill's Atlantic Forest.

如果你在这片森林的某个地方听到这种声音，那里就有树懒。这些树懒生活在巴西大西洋森林里。

If you're a tourist, watching sloths isn't that exciting. But if you're a scientist—well, it's also not that exciting.

如果你是游客，看到树懒并不会那么令人兴奋。但如果你是科学家，其实也没那么令人兴奋。

But there's a big upside:

但有一个很大的好处：

"So, they're actually a great study animal for the wild, because you can collect a lot of data on them."

“因此，它们其实是一种很好的野生研究动物，因为你可以收集大量关于它们的数据。”

Giles Duffield, a biologist at the University of Notre Dame³, who studies circadian rhythms.

圣母大学研究昼夜节律的生物学家贾尔斯·达菲尔德说到。

"I mean the ecology work that I used to do several years back in Bolivia was focused on bird conservation and bird ecology

“几年前我在玻利维亚进行的生态研究工作主要聚焦鸟类保护和鸟类生态学，

and, you know, you'd see some parrots and you'd make some notes and then they were gone and you wouldn't see them again for another 24 hours."

你会看到一些鹦鹉，记下一些笔记，之后它们就飞走了，在接下来的24小时你不会再看到它们。。”

But Duffield and colleagues now collect data on the brown-throated three-toed sloth¹ in the Atlantic Forest.

但达菲尔德和同事现在正在大西洋森林中收集褐喉三趾树懒的数据。

Duffield says the sloths can stay in sight—or even in the same tree—for nearly 24 hours.

达菲尔德表示，树獭可以在人们的视线中——甚至在同一棵树上——待近24小时。

The animals are at rest anywhere from 75 to 90 percent of the time. But they're coping with a damaged ecosystem⁴.

无论在任何地方，这些动物有75%到90%的时间都在休息。但它们正在应对被破坏的生态系统。

"The suggestion is 98 percent of that forest has been depleted⁵...

“这意味着98%的森林已经枯竭……

there's a lot of human disturbance⁶, there's a lot of roads cutting through these areas in the forest...and it means the fauna⁷ and flora⁸ is depleted."

由于很多人为干扰，许多道路穿过森林中的这些区域……这意味着动植物群已经枯竭。”

According to new research published in the journal Mammalian Biology by Duffield and colleagues,

根据达菲尔德及其同事在《哺乳动物生物学》期刊上发表的最新研究，

sloths are responding to that habitat disturbance by altering their biological rhythms.

树獭通过改变生物节律来应对栖息地的干扰。

"We started to see that the sloths were primarily day-active and that seemed counterintuitive from some of the literature on the species that we'd come across before,

“我们开始看到树獭主要在白天活动，这似乎与我们之前看过的有关该物种的文献在常理上相悖，

that suggested that they show cathemeral activity, which is kind of neither day nor night, just kind of across the whole board.

这表明它们展现出非固定活动，既不是白天活动也不是夜间活动，而是全天都有活动。

And in a few studies it was predominantly nocturnal behavior. So this was kind of the opposite to what we'd expected."

有些研究显示，它们主要在夜间行动。因此这和我们此前的预期正好相反。”

Duffield says there are few if any studies where researchers monitored sloths over a full 24-hour period. This study did exactly that for 29 days.

达菲尔德表示，几乎没有研究人员对树懒进行全天候的监测。而这项研究这样做了29天。

"Because a lot of the literature that we reviewed that was associated with sloths, had examined only a partial 24 hours

“因为我们所回顾的许多与树懒有关的文献只研究了24小时中的部分时间，

and so there was some inferences about their activity profiles over the course of the entire 24 hour period...so there was a bit of guesswork there."

之后对树懒在整个24小时内的活动进行一些推断，所以文献中存在一些推测。”

Duffield believes that because predators⁹ in the Atlantic forest are extinct,

达菲尔德认为，由于大西洋森林中的捕食者都已灭绝，

and sloths don't have to compete with other species for resources, they've simply taken on a daytime, or diurnal¹⁰, schedule.

而且树懒也不必与其他物种争夺资源，所以它们决定采用白天或者说日间活动时间表。

"The light-dark cycle would be that primary cue, and that's what's kind of surprising that an animal can be nocturnal under some conditions and diurnal in the other."

“光暗周期将是主要线索，动物在某些条件下可能是夜行性的，而在另一种条件下可能成为昼行性的，这有点令人惊讶。”

Other organisms may come along for the slow ride--from the algae¹¹ that live on sloths' fur to the insects that live alongside the unhurried mammals.

其他生物可能也一起减慢速度——从生活在树懒皮毛上的藻类到与这种悠闲的哺乳动物一起生活的昆虫。

Duffield says it's not clear if the new schedule adopted by sloths in the Atlantic forests also affects these creatures.

达菲尔德表示，目前尚不清楚大西洋森林树懒采用的新时间表是否也会影响到这些生物。

"That's something we'd love to examine, whether the local ecosystem and the associated organisms with the sloth, perhaps that changes?

“这是我们想研究的问题，当地的生态系统和与树懒相关的生物是否会改变？

A lot of organisms can't readily change their day to night activity.

许多生物体不能轻易地改变它们白天到晚上的活动。

You know, their survival strategy is based on one or the other, so it may well be that change or that association with daytime as opposed to nighttime, or cathemerality,

它们的生存策略是基于一种活动或另一种，因此很可能是这种变化或与白天而不是夜间的联系，或是与非固定性活动的联系，

does change some of the organisms that are associated with it."

确实改变了一些与之相关的生物体。”

Duffield's most important piece of equipment for this research may be a comfortable chair.

达菲尔德在这项研究中最重要的设备可能是一把舒适的椅子。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Emily Schwing.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是埃米莉·施温。

1 sloth   

n.[动]树懒；懒惰，懒散

参考例句：

• Absence of competition makes for sloth.没有竞争会导致懒惰。
• The sloth spends most of its time hanging upside down from the branches.大部分时间里树懒都是倒挂在树枝上。

2 sloths   

懒散( sloth的名词复数 )； 懒惰； 树獭； （经济）停滞。

参考例句：

• Mummies of pleistocene ground sloths, with original skin, hair, tendons and claws have been found. 还发现了保存原有皮肤，毛发，腱和爪的更新世时期地面树懒的木乃伊。
• He was inspired by fossils of armadillos and sloths. 犰狳和树懒化石让他获得了灵感。

3 dame   

n.女士

参考例句：

• The dame tell of her experience as a wife and mother.这位年长妇女讲了她作妻子和母亲的经验。
• If you stick around,you'll have to marry that dame.如果再逗留多一会，你就要跟那个夫人结婚。

4 ecosystem   

n.生态系统

参考例句：

• This destroyed the ecosystem of the island.这样破坏了岛上的生态系统。
• We all have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem.维持生态系统的完整是我们共同的利益。

5 depleted   

adj. 枯竭的, 废弃的 动词deplete的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• Food supplies were severely depleted. 食物供应已严重不足。
• Both teams were severely depleted by injuries. 两个队都因队员受伤而实力大减。

6 disturbance   

n.动乱，骚动；打扰，干扰；(身心)失调

参考例句：

• He is suffering an emotional disturbance.他的情绪受到了困扰。
• You can work in here without any disturbance.在这儿你可不受任何干扰地工作。

7 fauna   

n.(一个地区或时代的)所有动物，动物区系

参考例句：

• This National Park is an area with unique fauna and flora.该国家公园区域内具有独特的动物种群和植物种群。
• Fauna is a biological notion means all the animal life in a particular region or period. 动物群是一个生物学的概念，指的是一个特定时期或者地区的所有动物。

8 flora   

n.(某一地区的)植物群

参考例句：

• The subtropical island has a remarkably rich native flora.这个亚热带岛屿有相当丰富的乡土植物种类。
• All flora need water and light.一切草木都需要水和阳光。

9 predators   

n.食肉动物( predator的名词复数 )；奴役他人者（尤指在财务或性关系方面）

参考例句：

• birds and their earthbound predators 鸟和地面上捕食它们的动物
• The eyes of predators are highly sensitive to the slightest movement. 捕食性动物的眼睛能感觉到最细小的动静。 来自《简明英汉词典》

10 diurnal   

adj.白天的，每日的

参考例句：

• Kangaroos are diurnal animals.袋鼠是日间活动的动物。
• Over water the diurnal change in refraction is likely to be small. 在水面上，折光的周日变化可能是很小的。

11 algae   

n.水藻，海藻

参考例句：

• Most algae live in water.多数藻类生长在水中。
• Algae grow and spread quickly in the lake.湖中水藻滋蔓。