科学美国人60秒 猫鼬对气候感到不适

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Meerkats Are Getting Climate Sick

猫鼬对气候感到不适

Karen Hopkin: This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin.

Climate change. It’s the culprit behind an increase in droughts and floods, wildfires and storms. And a new study shows that it’s making more meerkats come down with tuberculosis¹. The findings appear in the journal Nature Climate Change.

凯伦·霍普金：这是《科学美国人》的60秒科学。我是凯伦·霍普金。

气候变化。这是干旱、洪水、野火和风暴增加背后的罪魁祸首。一项新的研究表明，它使更多的猫鼬患上肺结核。研究结果发表在《自然气候变化》杂志上。

Maria Paniw: So tuberculosis is an endemic disease in meerkats. It has been present in the population since meerkats have been studied.

Hopkin: Maria Paniw is a researcher at the Do?ana Biological Research Station in Spain. She says that for meerkats living in the Kalahari, TB outbreaks have been on the rise. Coincidentally, so have the local temperatures.

玛丽亚·帕尼瓦：所以肺结核是猫鼬的一种地方病。自从猫鼬被研究以来，它就一直存在于种群中。

霍普金：玛丽亚·帕尼瓦是西班牙多纳纳生物研究站的研究员。她说，对于生活在卡拉哈里的猫鼬来说，结核病疫情一直在上升。巧合的是，当地的温度也是如此。

Paniw: So we wanted to know whether there was a link between climate change, which you know has been increasing temperature extremes, and increases in tuberculosis outbreaks. And how this may affect populations of this social species.

Hopkin: So Paniw and her colleagues crunched² the numbers.

帕尼夫：所以我们想知道气候变化和结核病爆发之间是否有联系，你知道，气候变化导致极端气温升高。以及这将如何影响这个社会物种的种群。

霍普金：所以帕尼瓦和她的同事计算了这些数字。

Paniw: I was very fortunate to collaborate³ with the Kalahari Meerkat Project which is a fantastic project where we now have over 22 years of very detailed⁴ data on individual meerkats and about their survival, their reproduction, their growth, their movement, and so on. So it’s a very rich data set to work with.

帕尼瓦：我很幸运地与卡拉哈里猫鼬项目合作，这是一个了不起的项目，我们现在有超过22年的关于个体猫鼬及其生存、繁殖、生长、运动等的非常详细的数据。因此，这是一个非常丰富的数据集。

Hopkin: They used the data to build models to predict how climate change will affect meerkat populations.

Paniw: Our main results show that climate change affects meerkats primarily by increasing the likelihood of deadly TB outbreaks.

Hopkin: And according to the model, it can do so in two ways.

霍普金：他们利用这些数据建立模型，预测气候变化将如何影响猫鼬种群。

Paniw：我们的主要结果表明，气候变化主要通过增加致命结核病爆发的可能性来影响猫鼬。

霍普金：根据模型，它可以通过两种方式实现。

Paniw: First, extremely hot years induce physiological⁵ stress on meerkats because meerkats need to hide from the extreme heat. They do not have enough time to search for food and extreme heat may also be associated with very low rainfall and therefore drought so little food availability.

Paniw：首先，酷热的年份会给猫鼬带来生理压力，因为猫鼬需要躲避酷热。他们没有足够的时间寻找食物，酷热也可能与降雨量极低有关，因此干旱导致粮食供应不足。

Hopkin: That stress increases the probability that an endemic disease will turn into an outbreak that can completely wipe out meerkat populations….with the extinction⁶ risk for local groups predicted to double over the next dozen years.

霍普金：这种压力增加了地方病爆发的可能性，这种疾病可能会彻底消灭猫鼬种群…。预计当地种群的灭绝风险将在未来十几年翻一番。

Paniw: And the other way is that climate change also sort of destabilizes local groups and makes male meerkats much more mobile.

帕尼瓦：另一方面，气候变化也会破坏当地群体的稳定，使雄性猫鼬的活动性大大增强

Hopkin: Meerkats live in social groups from which males normally disperse⁷ to find mates. And when it’s warmer, males are much more likely to hit the road.

霍普金猫：猫鼬生活在群居中，雄性通常会从群居中分散开来寻找配偶。天气变暖时，雄性更容易上路。

Paniw: And with that they carry disease, they carry tuberculosis with them, and by moving around too much they spread disease between meerkat groups which again increases the chances or the risks of severe outbreaks.

帕尼瓦：它们携带疾病，也携带肺结核，通过过度迁徙，它们在猫鼬群体之间传播疾病，这再次增加了严重疫情爆发的机会或风险。

Hopkin: And Paniw says it’s not merely meerkats that should be concerned about the climate.

霍普金：帕尼说，不仅仅是猫鼬应该关心气候。

Paniw: This finding is particularly interesting and important because tuberculosis is a very widespread disease which affects many species including livestock⁸ that is quite important for humans.

帕尼瓦：这一发现特别有趣和重要，因为结核病是一种非常普遍的疾病，影响到许多物种，包括对人类非常重要的牲畜。

Hopkin: Yet another way that climate change could land us all in hot water.

For Scientific American’s 60-Second Science, I’m Karen Hopkin.

霍普金：气候变化可能会让我们大家陷入困境的另一种方式。

《科学美国人》的《60秒科学》，我是凯伦·霍普金。

1 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

2 crunched   

v.嘎吱嘎吱地咬嚼( crunch的过去式和过去分词 )；嘎吱作响；（快速大量地）处理信息；数字捣弄

参考例句：

• Our feet crunched on the frozen snow. 我们的脚嘎吱嘎吱地踩在冻雪上。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He closed his jaws on the bones and crunched. 他咬紧骨头，使劲地嚼。 来自英汉文学 - 热爱生命

3 collaborate   

vi.协作，合作；协调

参考例句：

• The work gets done more quickly when we collaborate.我们一旦合作，工作做起来就更快了。
• I would ask you to collaborate with us in this work.我们愿意请你们在这项工作中和我们合作。

4 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

5 physiological   

adj.生理学的，生理学上的

参考例句：

• He bought a physiological book.他买了一本生理学方面的书。
• Every individual has a physiological requirement for each nutrient.每个人对每种营养成分都有一种生理上的需要。

6 extinction   

n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种

参考例句：

• The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
• The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。

7 disperse   

vi.使分散；使消失；vt.分散；驱散

参考例句：

• The cattle were swinging their tails to disperse the flies.那些牛甩动着尾巴驱赶苍蝇。
• The children disperse for the holidays.孩子们放假了。

8 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。