科学美国人60秒 波士顿“邪恶”的鸽子咕咕叫

Boston and New York are famed for their rivalries¹: everything from the Yankees versus² the Red Sox to who makes the correct clam³ chowder. Even the local wildlife has hometown pride—because pigeons that roost near Rockefeller Center are genetically⁵ distinct from those that summer at the Cape⁶. The finding is in the journal Evolutionary⁷ Applications.

波士顿和纽约以之间的竞争而闻名：从洋基队到红袜队，再到谁会做正确的蛤杂烩汤，一切都应有尽有。甚至当地的野生动植物也是家乡的骄傲，因为在洛克菲勒中心附近栖息的鸽子在遗传上与那年夏天在海角的鸽子截然不同。该发现发表在《进化应用》杂志上。

“I don’t think we could be in a city without thinking about pigeons. And for many people, it’s one of the few daily interactions they have with wildlife.”Elizabeth Carlen, a graduate student at Fordham University in the Bronx.

“我不认为我们可以想到一个城市，但是却想不到鸽子。对于许多人来说，这是他们与野生动植物进行的少数日常互动。”伊丽莎白·卡伦，是布朗克斯福德汉姆大学的研究生。

As an evolutionary biologist, Carlen was curious about whether pigeons in one city are closely related, genetically speaking, to those from cities nearby. So she did a research-inspired road trip, making stops from Boston to D.C.

作为进化生物学家，卡伦很好奇，对于城市中的鸽子，从基因上讲，是否与附近城市的鸽子密切相关。因此，她进行了一次以研究为灵感的公路旅行，从波士顿出发，前往哥伦比亚特区。

“I would drive to a city and start talking to people at Starbucks. Anybody that I could chat with, I would start asking them questions about where they saw pigeons. And I kind of started to gather intel that way.”Once she’d found a flock, she’d lay down some bird seed ...

“我会开车去一个城市，然后开始与星巴克的人们聊天。任何可以与我聊天的人，我都会开始问他们关于在哪里看到鸽子的问题。我开始以这种方式收集情报。”一旦找到一群各自，她就放下一些鸟食...

“And then use a net gun, which is basically something that looks like a big flashlight. And it shoots a net out over the pigeons.”With birds literally⁸ in hand, she would take a DNA⁹ sample.

“I like to call like it a pigeon 23andMe. We’re looking for ancestry¹⁰ and proportion of shared ancestry. And so we can build this big map with all these individuals that kind of tells us who’s more closely related to who.”

“然后使用网枪，这基本上就像一个大手电筒。而且它在鸽子身上射出了一个网。”从字面上看，她会拿一个DNA样本。“我喜欢称它为23andMe鸽。我们正在寻找血统和共享血统的比例。因此，我们可以与所有这些人一起构建这张大地图，以告诉我们谁与谁关系更密切。”

Carlen was surprised to find that pigeons in the Northeast can be divided into two distinct populations.

卡伦惊讶地发现东北的鸽子可以分为两个不同的种群。

“One population is in Boston and Providence¹¹. And then the other population ranges from New York down to Washington, D.C. I had actually, based on previous research, thought that pigeons in each city would form their own separate populations. Because if you have food, and you have mates, why would you go anywhere? Why would you disperse¹²? And what I’m starting to realize is that pigeons actually kind of view this northeastern megacity as one giant city—at least from New York down to Washington, D.C.”And it wouldn’t take much to promote avian intermixing within this megacity.

波士顿和普罗维登斯有一个人口。然后，从纽约到华盛顿特区的其他人群，根据我以前的研究，我实际上认为，每个城市的鸽子都将形成各自独立的种群。因为如果您有食物，并且有伴侣，您为什么要去任何地方?你为什么要分散?我开始意识到，鸽子实际上是将这个东北大城市视为一个大城市，至少从纽约到华盛顿特区都是如此。”而且，在这个大城市中促进禽类混杂并不需要太多。

“One pigeon will leave New York and go down Philly. And then maybe a pigeon from Baltimore will come up to Philly. And that’s allowing there to be gene⁴ flow between all these cities.”Maybe the feathered foragers are simply following the food. Just think of all the French fries left behind at rest stops along I-95.“If humans are traveling this corridor quite a bit, it makes sense that pigeons also are traveling it.”

“一只鸽子将离开纽约，然后飞到费城。然后也许来自巴尔的摩的鸽子会来到费城。这使得所有这些城市之间都能有基因交流。”也许有羽毛的觅食者只是在跟随食物。试想一下I-95沿途停留的所有炸薯条。“如果人类在这条走廊上走了很多路，那么鸽子也在走这条路就很有意义了。”

As to why pigeons don’t bother making the trip between Boston and New York, Carlen points to the more manicured lawns of Connecticut.“Connecticut is a lot more suburban¹³ than these other areas, and that might be why pigeons in Providence and Boston are kind of falling out as separate from pigeons in more southern cities.”

至于为什么鸽子不打扰波士顿和纽约之间的旅程，卡伦指出了康涅狄格州修剪得更整齐的草坪。“康涅狄格州比其他地区郊区得多，这也许就是为什么普罗维登斯和波士顿的鸽子与其他南方城市的鸽子分开的原因。”

Next up, Carlen says she’d like to further explore the relationships that exist within flocks.“ Are they aunts and uncles and cousins and parents and grandparents? Or are they just a random¹⁴ group of individuals that happen to come together?” Hopefully not in the middle of the road.

接下来，卡伦说她想进一步探索鸽群中存在的关系。“它们是阿姨，叔叔，堂兄弟姐妹以及父母和祖父母吗?还是它们只是偶然碰巧在一起的一群人?”希望不要在路上的行人。

1 rivalries   

n.敌对，竞争，对抗( rivalry的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The new government was torn by rivalries. 新政府由于各派对立而四分五裂。 来自辞典例句
• Rivalries could bring about pain and hatred or give rise to fighting. 竞争会带来痛苦、仇恨，或者引起争斗。 来自互联网

2 versus   

prep.以…为对手，对；与…相比之下

参考例句：

• The big match tonight is England versus Spain.今晚的大赛是英格兰对西班牙。
• The most exciting game was Harvard versus Yale.最富紧张刺激的球赛是哈佛队对耶鲁队。

3 clam   

n.蛤，蛤肉

参考例句：

• Yup!I also like clam soup and sea cucumbers.对呀！我还喜欢蛤仔汤和海参。
• The barnacle and the clam are two examples of filter feeders.藤壶和蛤类是滤过觅食者的两种例子。

4 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

5 genetically   

adv.遗传上

参考例句：

• All the bees in the colony are genetically related. 同一群体的蜜蜂都有亲缘关系。
• Genetically modified foods have already arrived on American dinner tables. 经基因改造加工过的食物已端上了美国人的餐桌。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 基因与食物

6 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

7 evolutionary   

adj.进化的；演化的，演变的；[生]进化论的

参考例句：

• Life has its own evolutionary process.生命有其自身的进化过程。
• These are fascinating questions to be resolved by the evolutionary studies of plants.这些十分吸引人的问题将在研究植物进化过程中得以解决。

8 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

9 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

10 ancestry   

n.祖先，家世

参考例句：

• Their ancestry settled the land in 1856.他们的祖辈1856年在这块土地上定居下来。
• He is an American of French ancestry.他是法国血统的美国人。

11 providence   

n.深谋远虑，天道，天意；远见；节约；上帝

参考例句：

• It is tempting Providence to go in that old boat.乘那艘旧船前往是冒大险。
• To act as you have done is to fly in the face of Providence.照你的所作所为那样去行事，是违背上帝的意志的。

12 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。

13 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

14 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。