Birds are just as fashion-conscious as people

鳥類和人類一樣注重時(shí)尚

1st February 2023| 552words

Humans are not the animal kingdom’s only?fashionistas. Tits can be fashion?victims, too, apparently. A study published in?Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology by Sonja Wild and Lucy Aplin of the Max Planck Institute for Behavioural Biology, in Radolfzell, Germany, shows that, given the chance, they decorate their?nests?with this season’s must-have colour.

人類并不是動(dòng)物王國(guó)唯一的時(shí)尚達(dá)人。顯然，山雀也是時(shí)尚奴。德國(guó)拉多夫澤爾馬克斯·普朗克行為生物學(xué)研究所的Sonja Wild和Lucy Aplin，在《行為生態(tài)學(xué)和社會(huì)生物學(xué)》上發(fā)表的一項(xiàng)研究表明，只要有機(jī)會(huì)，山雀就會(huì)用當(dāng)季必備的顏色來裝飾它們的巢穴。

Dr Wild and Dr Aplin were following up work published in 1934 by Henry Smith Williams, an American?naturalist. He noticed that when he put various coloured balls of yarn out in his garden, almost always one and only one became popular that season for?incorporation?into local birds’ nests. But which particular hue was favoured varied from season to season. This suggested that the colour chosen by one of the early birds was spotted and copied by others.

Wild博士和Aplin博士正在跟進(jìn)美國(guó)博物學(xué)家亨利·史密斯·威廉姆斯于1934年發(fā)表的研究。威廉姆斯注意到，當(dāng)他把各種顏色的紗線球放在花園里時(shí)，幾乎總會(huì)是有且只有一種顏色的紗線球，在那個(gè)季節(jié)被鳥類銜入當(dāng)?shù)氐镍B巢中。但這些鳥偏愛哪種顏色則因季節(jié)而異。這表明，一只鳥最早選擇筑巢的顏色被其他鳥類發(fā)現(xiàn)并模仿。

Williams’s work was, however, forgotten until Dr Wild and Dr Aplin?came across?it while following up on a different study, published in 2009 by a team at the University of Toulouse. This group noted that, during any given?breeding?season, the blue tits they were investigating tended to incorporate the same?herbaceous?plants into their nests?regardless of?how abundant those herbs actually were. This, too, suggested fashion-following—and it likewise led Dr Wild and Dr Aplin to?speculate?that birds were studying the nests of others and copying them. They therefore set out to re-run Williams’s experiment, but this time to collect some actual numbers.

然而，威廉姆斯的研究被遺忘了，直到Wild博士和Aplin博士在跟進(jìn)圖盧茲大學(xué)一個(gè)團(tuán)隊(duì)于2009年發(fā)表的另一項(xiàng)研究時(shí)才偶然發(fā)現(xiàn)了它。圖盧茲大學(xué)的團(tuán)隊(duì)注意到，在任何給定的繁殖季節(jié)，他們所調(diào)查的藍(lán)山雀傾向于將相同的草本植物筑進(jìn)它們的巢中，而不管這些草本植物的種類實(shí)際上有多豐富。這也暗示了時(shí)尚的追隨——這同樣使Wild博士和Aplin博士推測(cè)，一些鳥類正在學(xué)習(xí)其他鳥類的巢穴并模仿它們。因此，他們開始重新進(jìn)行威廉姆斯的實(shí)驗(yàn)，但這一次會(huì)收集一些實(shí)際的數(shù)據(jù)。

The birds they followed were part of a well-monitored population of blue, great and marsh tits in a wood near the institute. Most birds in this wood carry transponders fitted to them after their capture in mist nets. That allows the institute’s researchers to keep track of a vast number of individuals by logging their arrival at food dispensers scattered throughout the wood.

他們追蹤研究的鳥，是研究所附近樹林中藍(lán)山雀、大山雀和沼澤山雀的一部分，它們受到嚴(yán)密的監(jiān)控。研究人員用霧網(wǎng)捕獲這片樹林里的大多數(shù)鳥類后，都給它們安裝了應(yīng)答器。這使得研究所的研究人員，可以通過記錄它們到達(dá)散布在樹林里的食物分發(fā)器來跟蹤大量的鳥類個(gè)體。

One day in March 2021 Dr Wild, Dr Aplin and their collaborators deployed five RFID-enabled dispensers loaded with wool rather than food. Each contained strands of two colours—either orange and pink or blue and purple—but all were rigged to dispense only one of these. This remained so until at least one local nest was seen to include wool from a dispenser. At that moment, the other colour was made available, too. As a control, Dr Wild and Dr Aplin set up, in a separate area, four further wool-dispensers, each of which provided two colours from the get-go.

2021年3月的一天，Wild博士、Aplin博士和他們的合作者，在樹林里部署了五個(gè)啟用RFID的分發(fā)器，這次里面裝的是毛料而不是食物。每一個(gè)分發(fā)器都含有兩種顏色的毛料——橙色和粉色，或者藍(lán)色和紫色——但所有的分發(fā)器都只分配其中一種顏色。當(dāng)至少看到有一個(gè)當(dāng)?shù)氐某惭ㄖ邪◤姆职l(fā)器來的毛料時(shí)，那么只分發(fā)一種毛料的持續(xù)狀態(tài)結(jié)束。就在這時(shí)，另一種顏色也可以從分發(fā)器獲得。作為對(duì)照，Wild博士和Aplin博士在一個(gè)單獨(dú)的區(qū)域設(shè)置了另外四個(gè)毛料分發(fā)器，每個(gè)分發(fā)器從一開始就提供兩種顏色。

Of 68 tits’ nests built that season in the experimental areas, 26 included wool from a dispenser. Of these, 18 were constructed after both colours had become available from all dispensers. Even so, ten of that 18 included only the colour of wool first chosen by a nestbuilder. By contrast, all eight wool-bearing nests in the control zone contained a mixture of colours—a statistically significant difference.

在研究的當(dāng)季，筑建在實(shí)驗(yàn)區(qū)的68個(gè)山雀巢中，有26個(gè)使用了從分發(fā)器中取來的毛料。其中，有18個(gè)鳥巢是在所有的分發(fā)器都能取到兩種顏色的毛料之后筑建的。即便如此，這18個(gè)鳥巢中有10個(gè)只包含了筑巢者首先選擇的毛料顏色。相比之下，控制區(qū)內(nèi)所有8個(gè)包含毛料的鳥巢都是混合顏色的——這在統(tǒng)計(jì)上有顯著差異。

Tits, then, do seem to be “on trend” when it comes to nest-building materials. Why that should happen remains obscure. Dr Wild and Dr Aplin suspect the trendsetters are older birds, and that evolution favours younger ones copying their elders since those elders have evidently survived what fortune has to throw at a tit. Williams’s original work, though, suggests such initial choices are arbitrary. A bit like those of the leaders of human fashions.

這么說來，在選擇筑巢材料方面，山雀似乎確實(shí)是“潮流”。但為什么會(huì)發(fā)生這種情況仍不清楚。Wild博士和Aplin博士懷疑，引領(lǐng)潮流的是年長(zhǎng)的鳥類，進(jìn)化使年輕的鳥類傾向于去模仿他們的長(zhǎng)輩，因?yàn)轱@然，這些年長(zhǎng)的鳥兒在不知道有什么命運(yùn)降臨的時(shí)候存活了下來。然而，威廉姆斯原本的研究表明，這種最初的選擇是隨意的，有點(diǎn)像人類時(shí)尚的領(lǐng)導(dǎo)者。

詞匯積累

fashionista

英?[?f????ni?st?]｜美?[?f????nist?]

n.?〈非正式〉時(shí)尚達(dá)人

victim

英?['v?kt?m]｜美?[?v?kt?m]

n. 受害者；犧牲品；罹難者；罹病者

nest

英?[nest]｜美?[nest]

n. 窩；鳥巢；巢穴；鳥窩

naturalist

英?['n?t?(?)r?l?st]｜美?[?n?t?(?)r?l?st]

n.?博物學(xué)家

incorporation

英?[?n?k??p?'re??(?)n]

n. 結(jié)合；并入；公司注冊(cè)

come across

遇見；碰撞；正好遇見

breeding

英?[?bri?d??]｜美?[?brid??]

n. 繁殖；教養(yǎng)；（為繁殖的）飼養(yǎng)

herbaceous

英?[h?(r)?be???s]｜美?[?r?be???s]

adj. 草本植物的；草質(zhì)；葉狀的

regardless of

prep. 不管；不顧；不理會(huì)

speculate

英?[?spekj?le?t]｜美?[?spekj??le?t]

v. 投機(jī)；推測(cè)；猜測(cè)；推斷

transponder

英?[tr?n?sp?nd?(r)]｜美?[tr?n?spɑnd?r]

n. 轉(zhuǎn)發(fā)器；應(yīng)答機(jī)；應(yīng)答器

dispenser

英?[d??spens?(r)]｜美?[d??spens?r]

n. 自動(dòng)取款機(jī)；自動(dòng)售貨機(jī)；自動(dòng)取物器

scatter

英?[?sk?t?(r)]｜美?[?sk?t?r]

v. 撒；四散；驅(qū)散；撒播

deploy

英?[d?'pl??]｜美?[d??pl??]

v. 部署；利用

separate

英?[?sep(?)r?t]｜美?[?sep?r?t]

adj. 單獨(dú)的；獨(dú)立的；分開的；不同的

when it comes to

一談到；當(dāng)提到；當(dāng)談到

obscure

英 [?b?skj??(r)]｜美 [?b?skj?r]

adj. 無名的；鮮為人知的；費(fèi)解的；難以理解的

trendsetter

英 [?trend?set?(r)]｜美 [?trend?set?(r)]

n. 引領(lǐng)潮流的人或物

arbitrary

英 [?ɑ?(r)b?tr?ri]｜美 [?ɑrb??treri]

adj. 任意的；武斷的；隨心所欲的；專橫的