经济学人286:昆虫学 有失蜂度

 　　Science and technology

　　科学技术

　　Entomology

　　昆虫学

　　Bad beehaviour

　　有失蜂度

　　The strange case of the bandit bumblebees

　　熊蜂：不可思议的土匪

　　TO MOST people, bumblebees are charming, slightly absurd creatures that blunder through garden and meadow with neither the steely determination of the honeybee nor the malevolent¹ intention of the wasp².

　　在人们的印象里，熊蜂可爱、友好而又有些令人可笑。它们跌跌撞撞地穿过花园和草场，既不像蜜蜂，有钢铁般的决心；也不似黄蜂，具备恶意的企图。

　　If you are a plant, though, things look rather different—for from the point of view of some flowering plants many bumblebees are nothing more than thieves.

　　不过，如果你是一株植物，你就会从新定义它们。从一些有花植物角度来看，熊蜂是彻头彻尾的贼：

　　They rob them of their nectar and give nothing in return.

　　它们掠夺花蜜，却未予回报。

　　Nectar robbery, in which a bumblebee carves a hole in the side of a flower as a bank robber might cut his way into a vault³, was discovered by Charles Darwin.

　　某些花的形状发生了演化，以促进具有长舌的昆虫为其授粉。昆虫的长舌能探到狭小管道状花的深处。

　　This technique lets bees get at the nectar of flowers whose shapes have evolved to encourage their pollination⁴ by insects with long tongues, which can reach down narrow tubes.

　　达尔文最先发现熊蜂抢劫花蜜的行为。熊蜂在花的一侧切开一个口，行径无异于银行强盗杀进金库。它们凭借这种本领获取狭小管道状花的花蜜。

　　Some bumblebees do have such tongues. But some do not.

　　有的熊蜂的确有长舌，不过有些确实没有。

　　Short-tongued bees are, however, unwilling⁵ to deny themselves the bounty⁶ of nectar inside these flowers. Hence the hole-cutting.

　　短舌熊蜂难以抵御丰厚花蜜的诱惑，于是就有了切口打孔。

　　By breaking in in this way, though, a bumblebee nullifies the 100m-year-old pact⁷ between flowering plants and insects: that the plant feeds the insect in exchange for the insect pollinating the plant.

　　然而这种暴力获取的方式却撕毁了有花植物和昆虫间一亿万年的古老契约：植物为昆虫提供食物，昆虫履行为其授粉的义务。

　　The question about nectar robbery that has intrigued⁸ biologists from Darwin onwards is whether the behaviour is innate⁹ or learnt.

　　熊蜂抢劫花蜜的行为到底是先天性还是后天性，自达尔文起，生物学家们一直对此感到困惑。

　　Darwin, though he originated the idea that many behaviour patterns are products of evolution by natural selection, suspected that it is learnt.

　　达尔文推测这是后天性的。

　　Insects, in other words, can copy what other insects get up to.

　　换言之，他推测昆虫有能力模仿其他昆虫的行为习惯。

　　Only now, though, has somebody proved that this is true.

　　直到现在，这种推测才被证明是正确的。

　　The observations were made by David Goulson, and his colleagues.

　　做出观测的是David Goulson以及他的同事。

　　To test his ideas he had to go from Britain to Switzerland, for only there could he find a flower of the correct shape to conduct the study.

　　为了检验他的想法，他必须远离英国前往瑞士。因为只有那里才能找到形状合适的花以进行研究。

　　His crucial observation was that when the flowers of an alpine¹⁰ plant called the yellow rattle¹¹ are robbed, the entry holes—because of the structure of the flower—tend to be unambiguously on either the right-hand side or the left-hand side.

　　决定性的观测在于yellow rattle被熊蜂造访后留下的孔。由于这种花的特殊结构，人们可以明确地区分出孔在花的左侧还是右侧。

　　Moreover, preliminary observation suggested that the holes in flowers in a single meadow are often all made on the same side.

　　加之初步观测结果表明，同一块草场中这种花上的孔常常在同一侧。

　　This led him to speculate that bumblebees in a particular area do indeed learn the art of nectar robbery from one another, and then copy the technique with such fidelity¹² that they always attack a flower from the same side.

　　他认为，对于生活在所研究的特定草场中的熊蜂，它们确确实实从其他个体那里学习了抢劫花蜜的技术。并且它们模仿的相当精准，以至于总是从同一侧侵袭花朵。

　　Crime and nourishment¹³

　　罪与馐

　　His team monitored 13 alpine meadows during the summers of 2009 and 2011.

　　他的研究组于2009年和2011年的夏天监测阿尔卑斯山13块草场。

　　They painstakingly¹⁴ recorded the sites of robbery holes in yellow-rattle flowers, and studied the behaviour of 168 bumblebees.

　　他们煞费苦心地记录yellow rattle上抢劫孔的位置，并且研究了168只熊蜂的行为。

　　They tried to follow each bee until it had visited 20 flowers, though they lost sight of some insects before they had reached this score.

　　研究组尽力追踪每只熊蜂，直到它光顾的花达到20朵为止。

　　If they could, they then captured the insect so as not to follow it again on another occasion.

　　尽管有些熊蜂没有达到这个数量就不见了，但若够数，他们旋即捉捕那只熊蜂，以防止二次追踪。

　　Dr Goulson found, as he reports in Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, that two short-tongued bumblebee species which live in the area, Bombus lucorum and Bombus wurflenii, demonstrated handedness when they robbed flowers.

　　博士发现，生活在该地区的两种短舌熊蜂在打劫花时表现出利手行为。

　　Moreover, if one species was behaving in a left-handed manner in a particular meadow, the other was likely to do the same.

　　更有甚者，如果针对特定的草场，一种熊蜂是左撇子，那么另一种熊蜂通常也是左撇子。

　　This suggests that one species can learn from another—a trick previously¹⁵ thought to be confined to vertebrates.

　　这暗示一物种可以向另一物种学习—过去人们认为只有脊椎动物才有这种本领。

　　Handedness in any given meadow, Dr Goulson found, increased as the season progressed.

　　他还发现，在任何指定的草场中，利手性随着季节的更替而强化，

　　But each summer appeared to start as a blank slate¹⁶.

　　但每到夏天则似乎从新形成。

　　The handedness that developed in a meadow in 2009 did not predict its handedness in 2011.

　　某块草场中09年利手性并没有预测出11年的利手性。Goulson博士将以上发现发表在《生态学与社会生物学》上。

　　The most reasonable explanation, Dr Goulson argues, is that each year a few bumblebees which have learnt the trick of nectar robbery in the previous season come out of hibernation¹⁷ and start robbing flowers again.

　　Goulson博士认为最合理的解释是：每一年，一些熊蜂在过去季节里掌握了抢劫花蜜本领，它们冬眠后再次出来抢劫。

　　By chance, they make more holes on one side of the flowers than the other, and as the habit is picked up by other, newly hatched bees, a preference for left or right spreads by a process of positive feedback.

　　它们偶然间在花的一侧制造出更多的抢劫孔。由于其他新孵化出的熊蜂效仿了这种习惯，左利手或右利手作为一种正反馈进行传播。

　　The bees have, in other words, created a simple culture.

　　或者说，熊蜂创造出一种简单的文化。

　　It is a criminal culture, admittedly.

　　诚然，这是一种罪恶的文化，

　　But no one ever said that nature was pretty.

　　但没有人曾说，自然界原本是优雅的。

　　1.evolve to 演变；衍变

　　But the universe as we observe it seems to evolve that way.

　　但宇宙貌似正如我们所观测的那样在不断地进行演变。

　　All of this is done by using techniques and technologies that have been around for years but which have continued to evolve.

　　所有这些都不是用什么新技术实现的，而是采用这几年广为应用同时又在不断发展的技术。

　　2.unwilling to 不愿意

　　What part of our plan are we each unwilling to change?

　　在我们的计划中，有哪部分是我们各自不愿意改变的？

　　One reason, he said, why he believes the government has not accepted it yet, and also why they are unwilling to increase the quotas¹⁸.

　　他说，这就是为什么政府还没有接受放宽酒水供应的提议和不愿意去提高酒类的配额的原因之一。

　　3.in exchange for 作为…的交换

　　You and the piece of grass are all they have given me in exchange for the whole world, which I enjoyed outside.

　　你和这小块草皮是他们所给我的，用来交换我在外面享受着的整个世界的。

　　In exchange for your effort, you are rewarded with composting service, provided by reliable workers (the worms!).

　　以你的努力为交换，你将获得由可靠的工人（蠕虫）提供的堆制肥料服务。

　　4.get up to 赶上，追上；达到

　　When I got up to him,I could see that he was one of my friends after all.

　　我追上他后，发现他原来是我的一个朋友。

　　Yesterday I got up to page 100.

　　昨天我看到了100页。

1 malevolent   

adj.有恶意的，恶毒的

参考例句：

• Why are they so malevolent to me?他们为什么对我如此恶毒？
• We must thwart his malevolent schemes.我们决不能让他的恶毒阴谋得逞。

2 wasp   

n.黄蜂，蚂蜂

参考例句：

• A wasp stung me on the arm.黄蜂蜇了我的手臂。
• Through the glass we can see the wasp.透过玻璃我们可以看到黄蜂。

3 vault   

n.拱形圆顶，地窖，地下室

参考例句：

• The vault of this cathedral is very high.这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
• The old patrician was buried in the family vault.这位老贵族埋在家族的墓地里。

4 pollination   

n.授粉

参考例句：

• The flowers get pollination by insects.这些花通过昆虫授粉。
• Without sufficient pollination,the growth of the corn is stunted.没有得到充足的授粉，谷物的长势就会受阻。

5 unwilling   

adj.不情愿的

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• His tightfisted employer was unwilling to give him a raise.他那吝啬的雇主不肯给他加薪。

6 bounty   

n.慷慨的赠予物，奖金；慷慨，大方；施与

参考例句：

• He is famous for his bounty to the poor.他因对穷人慷慨相助而出名。
• We received a bounty from the government.我们收到政府给予的一笔补助金。

7 pact   

n.合同，条约，公约，协定

参考例句：

• The two opposition parties made an electoral pact.那两个反对党订了一个有关选举的协定。
• The trade pact between those two countries came to an end.那两国的通商协定宣告结束。

8 intrigued   

adj.好奇的，被迷住了的v.搞阴谋诡计(intrigue的过去式)；激起…的兴趣或好奇心；“intrigue”的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• You've really intrigued me—tell me more! 你说的真有意思—再给我讲一些吧！
• He was intrigued by her story. 他被她的故事迷住了。

9 innate   

adj.天生的，固有的，天赋的

参考例句：

• You obviously have an innate talent for music.你显然有天生的音乐才能。
• Correct ideas are not innate in the mind.人的正确思想不是自己头脑中固有的。

10 alpine   

adj.高山的；n.高山植物

参考例句：

• Alpine flowers are abundant there.那里有很多高山地带的花。
• Its main attractions are alpine lakes and waterfalls .它以高山湖泊和瀑布群为主要特色。

11 rattle   

v.飞奔，碰响；激怒；n.碰撞声；拨浪鼓

参考例句：

• The baby only shook the rattle and laughed and crowed.孩子只是摇着拨浪鼓，笑着叫着。
• She could hear the rattle of the teacups.她听见茶具叮当响。

12 fidelity   

n.忠诚，忠实；精确

参考例句：

• There is nothing like a dog's fidelity.没有什么能比得上狗的忠诚。
• His fidelity and industry brought him speedy promotion.他的尽职及勤奋使他很快地得到晋升。

13 nourishment   

n.食物，营养品；营养情况

参考例句：

• Lack of proper nourishment reduces their power to resist disease.营养不良降低了他们抵抗疾病的能力。
• He ventured that plants draw part of their nourishment from the air.他大胆提出植物从空气中吸收部分养分的观点。

14 painstakingly   

adv. 费力地 苦心地

参考例句：

• Every aspect of the original has been closely studied and painstakingly reconstructed. 原作的每一细节都经过了仔细研究，费尽苦心才得以重现。
• The cause they contrived so painstakingly also ended in failure. 他们惨淡经营的事业也以失败而告终。

15 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

16 slate   

n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订

参考例句：

• The nominating committee laid its slate before the board.提名委员会把候选人名单提交全体委员会讨论。
• What kind of job uses stained wood and slate? 什么工作会接触木头污浊和石板呢？

17 hibernation   

n.冬眠

参考例句：

• Bears wake up in the spring after a winter of hibernation.熊经过一个冬天的冬眠后在春季苏醒。
• The tortoise spends the winter months in hibernation.乌龟在冬眠中度过寒冬季节。

18 quotas   

（正式限定的）定量( quota的名词复数 )； 定额； 指标； 摊派

参考例句：

• In fulfilling the production quotas, John made rings round all his fellow workers. 约翰完成生产定额大大超过他的同事们。
• Quotas of the means of production are allocated by the higher administrative bodies to the lower ones. 物资指标按隶属关系分配。