評論
打印
Science and technology
科學技術
Entomology
昆蟲學
Bad beehaviour
有失蜂度
The strange case of the bandit bumblebees
熊蜂：不可思議的土匪
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 malevolent intention of the wasp.
在人們的印象里，熊蜂可愛、友好而又有些令人可笑。它們跌跌撞撞地穿過花園和草場，既不像蜜蜂，有鋼鐵般的決心；也不似黃蜂，具備惡意的企圖。
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.
不過，如果你是一株植物，你就會從新定義它們。從一些有花植物角度來看，熊蜂是徹頭徹尾的賊：
They rob them of their nectar and give nothing in return.
它們掠奪花蜜，卻未予回報。
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 vault, was discovered by Charles Darwin.
某些花的形狀發(fā)生了演化，以促進具有長舌的昆蟲為其授粉。昆蟲的長舌能探到狹小管道狀花的深處。
This technique lets bees get at the nectar of flowers whose shapes have evolved to encourage their pollination by insects with long tongues, which can reach down narrow tubes.
達爾文最先發(fā)現(xiàn)熊蜂搶劫花蜜的行為。熊蜂在花的一側(cè)切開一個口，行徑無異于銀行強盜殺進金庫。它們憑借這種本領獲取狹小管道狀花的花蜜。
Some bumblebees do have such tongues. But some do not.
有的熊蜂的確有長舌，不過有些確實沒有。
Short-tongued bees are, however, unwilling to deny themselves the bounty of nectar inside these flowers. Hence the hole-cutting.
短舌熊蜂難以抵御豐厚花蜜的誘惑，于是就有了切口打孔。
By breaking in in this way, though, a bumblebee nullifies the 100m-year-old pact between flowering plants and insects: that the plant feeds the insect in exchange for the insect pollinating the plant.
然而這種暴力獲取的方式卻撕毀了有花植物和昆蟲間一億萬年的古老契約：植物為昆蟲提供食物，昆蟲履行為其授粉的義務。
The question about nectar robbery that has intrigued biologists from Darwin onwards is whether the behaviour is innate or learnt.
熊蜂搶劫花蜜的行為到底是先天性還是后天性，自達爾文起，生物學家們一直對此感到困惑。
Darwin, though he originated the idea that many behaviour patterns are products of evolution by natural selection, suspected that it is learnt.
達爾文推測這是后天性的。
Insects, in other words, can copy what other insects get up to.
換言之，他推測昆蟲有能力模仿其他昆蟲的行為習慣。
Only now, though, has somebody proved that this is true.
直到現(xiàn)在，這種推測才被證明是正確的。
The observations were made by David Goulson, and his colleagues.
做出觀測的是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.
為了檢驗他的想法，他必須遠離英國前往瑞士。因為只有那里才能找到形狀合適的花以進行研究。
His crucial observation was that when the flowers of an alpine plant called the yellow rattle 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.
決定性的觀測在于yellow rattle被熊蜂造訪后留下的孔。由于這種花的特殊結構，人們可以明確地區(qū)分出孔在花的左側(cè)還是右側(cè)。
Moreover, preliminary observation suggested that the holes in flowers in a single meadow are often all made on the same side.
加之初步觀測結果表明，同一塊草場中這種花上的孔常常在同一側(cè)。
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 fidelity that they always attack a flower from the same side.
他認為，對于生活在所研究的特定草場中的熊蜂，它們確確實實從其他個體那里學習了搶劫花蜜的技術。并且它們模仿的相當精準，以至于總是從同一側(cè)侵襲花朵。
Crime and nourishment
罪與饈
His team monitored 13 alpine meadows during the summers of 2009 and 2011.
他的研究組于2009年和2011年的夏天監(jiān)測阿爾卑斯山13塊草場。
They painstakingly recorded the sites of robbery holes in yellow-rattle flowers, and studied the behaviour of 168 bumblebees.
他們煞費苦心地記錄yellow rattle上搶劫孔的位置，并且研究了168只熊蜂的行為。
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.
研究組盡力追蹤每只熊蜂，直到它光顧的花達到20朵為止。
If they could, they then captured the insect so as not to follow it again on another occasion.
盡管有些熊蜂沒有達到這個數(shù)量就不見了，但若夠數(shù)，他們旋即捉捕那只熊蜂，以防止二次追蹤。
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.
博士發(fā)現(xiàn)，生活在該地區(qū)的兩種短舌熊蜂在打劫花時表現(xiàn)出利手行為。
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，如果針對特定的草場，一種熊蜂是左撇子，那么另一種熊蜂通常也是左撇子。
This suggests that one species can learn from another—a trick previously thought to be confined to vertebrates.
這暗示一物種可以向另一物種學習—過去人們認為只有脊椎動物才有這種本領。
Handedness in any given meadow, Dr Goulson found, increased as the season progressed.
他還發(fā)現(xiàn)，在任何指定的草場中，利手性隨著季節(jié)的更替而強化，
But each summer appeared to start as a blank slate.
但每到夏天則似乎從新形成。
The handedness that developed in a meadow in 2009 did not predict its handedness in 2011.
某塊草場中09年利手性并沒有預測出11年的利手性。Goulson博士將以上發(fā)現(xiàn)發(fā)表在《生態(tài)學與社會生物學》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 hibernation and start robbing flowers again.
Goulson博士認為最合理的解釋是：每一年，一些熊蜂在過去季節(jié)里掌握了搶劫花蜜本領，它們冬眠后再次出來搶劫。
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.
它們偶然間在花的一側(cè)制造出更多的搶劫孔。由于其他新孵化出的熊蜂效仿了這種習慣，左利手或右利手作為一種正反饋進行傳播。
The bees have, in other words, created a simple culture.
或者說，熊蜂創(chuàng)造出一種簡單的文化。
It is a criminal culture, admittedly.
誠然，這是一種罪惡的文化，
But no one ever said that nature was pretty.
但沒有人曾說，自然界原本是優(yōu)雅的。
