蜜蜂与人类的命运休戚相关

VANCOUVER, British Columbia — AROUND the world, honeybee colonies are dying in huge numbers: About one-third of hives collapse each year, a pattern going back a decade. For bees and the plants they pollinate — as well as for beekeepers, farmers, honey lovers and everyone else who appreciates this marvelous social insect — this is a catastrophe.
加拿大温哥华——目前，世界各地的蜂群都在大批死亡：每年都有大约三分之一的蜂巢坍塌，这种现象已持续了10年之久。对于蜜蜂及通过它们授粉的植物——还有养蜂人、农民、喜爱蜂蜜的人，以及所有欣赏这种神奇的群居昆虫的人而言——这都是个灾难。

But in the midst of crisis can come learning. Honeybee collapse has much to teach us about how humans can avoid a similar fate, brought on by the increasingly severe environmental perturbations that challenge modern society.
但是，这种危机之中也隐藏着一些学问。蜂巢的坍塌可以提供许多信息，告诉我们当愈加严重的环境问题对现代社会构成挑战之时，人们如何才能避免相似的命运。

Honeybee collapse has been particularly vexing because there is no one cause, but rather a thousand little cuts. The main elements include the compounding impact of pesticides applied to fields, as well as pesticides applied directly into hives to control mites; fungal, bacterial and viral pests and diseases; nutritional deficiencies caused by vast acreages of single-crop fields that lack diverse flowering plants; and, in the United States, commercial beekeeping itself, which disrupts colonies by moving most bees around the country multiple times each year to pollinate crops.
蜜蜂的死亡尤其令人忧心，因为起因并非只有一个，而是有上千种轻微的破坏因素。主要原因包括，农田喷洒的杀虫剂，以及为了抑制小虫直接喷到蜂窝上的杀虫剂所造成的综合影响；带有真菌、细菌和病毒的害虫，以及疾病；由于大面积种植同一种作物而缺乏多种开花植物所造成的营养不足；在美国，商业养蜂人每年都会多次带蜂群在全国各地为作物授粉，这种做法也对蜂群造成了破坏。

The real issue, though, is not the volume of problems, but the interactions among them. Here we find a core lesson from the bees that we ignore at our peril: the concept of synergy, where one plus one equals three, or four, or more. A typical honeybee colony contains residue from more than 120 pesticides. Alone, each represents a benign dose. But together they form a toxic soup of chemicals whose interplay can substantially reduce the effectiveness of bees’ immune systems, making them more susceptible to diseases.
然而，真正的问题并不在于问题的多少，而是问题间的相互作用。我们从蜂群身上得出了一则核心教训，一旦忽视，就会给我们带来危险，那就是协同作用的概念——即一加一等于三，或者四，甚至更大的数值。一般而言，每个蜂巢都含有120多种杀虫剂残余物。单独来看，每种杀虫剂的剂量都是良性的。但是如果放在一起，它们就会形成一种有毒的化学液体，这些化学物质相互作用，会极大地破坏蜜蜂的免疫系统，让蜂群更容易患病。

These findings provide the most sophisticated data set available for any species about synergies among pesticides, and between pesticides and disease. The only human equivalent is research into pharmaceutical interactions, with many prescription drugs showing harmful or fatal side effects when used together, particularly in patients who already are disease-compromised. Pesticides have medical impacts as potent as pharmaceuticals do, yet we know virtually nothing about their synergistic impacts on our health, or their interplay with human diseases.
这些发现所提供的，关于杀虫剂与杀虫剂、杀虫剂与疾病之间发生协同作用的数据集，是所有物种中最为详细的。对于人类，唯一对等的是对药物相互作用的研究。许多处方药在同时使用时，都会表现出有害乃至致命的副作用，对于那些已经生病的患者来说尤其如此。杀虫剂与药物的作用一样强大，但我们其实根本不知道它们会对我们的健康产生怎样的协同作用，也不知道它们会如何与人类的疾病相互影响。