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The most common types of ingested birth control contain estrogen. But the hormone doesn’t just prevent human babies. It may be lowering numbers of frog babies, too. Because estrogens can travel unaltered through a woman’s system, and back into the environment—where they interfere with the courtship of frogs.
使用雌性激素是人類最常用的節育方式。然而，雌性激素不僅可以降低人類嬰兒的出生率，還會使蛙類的繁殖大受影響。雌性激素可通過女性身體完好無損地排放到環境中——這就對蛙類的求偶產生影響。
Researchers bathed male frogs in tanks containing various concentrations of estrogen—comparable to levels previously measured in nature. And they found that males exposed to estrogen made significantly fewer ‘advertisement’ calls: mating calls that say “hey ladies, I’m over here.” Instead, the frogs made more so-called ‘rasping’ calls: a sign the boys weren’t as turned on as they used to be.
研究人員將青蛙浸泡在含有不同濃度（相對于以往在自然界中測得的青蛙雌性激素水平而言）雌性激素的容器中。他們發現，浸泡在雌性激素中的雄蛙的原本重要的求愛聲“嘿，女士們，我在這里”大大減少。相反，雄蛙會更多地發出一種“沙啞”的叫聲——這種叫聲意味著他們已不像以往那樣孔武有力。
As it turns out, neither were the ladies. Because when researchers played back estrogen-influenced calls to females, the lady frogs weren’t as hot to hop, compared to when they heard the crooning of control frogs. Those findings appear in the journal Public Library of Science ONE.
事實證明，雌蛙會因此而受到影響。與聽到雄蛙響亮叫聲的反應不同的是，當研究人員向雌蛙播放受雌性激素影響的雄性青蛙的叫聲時，雌蛙并不興奮。這項研究結果刊登在《科學公共圖書館》雜志上。
The authors say less seductive mating calls could mean fewer tadpoles. Which means our sex lives could be partly to blame for making global populations of amphibians croak.
研究人員認為，雄蛙求愛聲魅力減弱與雌蛙產卵量減少是有聯系的。因此，全球青蛙數量的減少，部分程度上應歸咎于人類的的兩性生活。
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