经济学人下载:海洋生态 欢迎来到塑料星球

Science and technology
科学技术

Marine ecology
海洋生态

Welcome to the plastisphere
欢迎来到塑料星球

What is pollution to some is opportunity to others
对一些人意味着污染对另一些人却意味着是机会

SINCE 2008 geologists have been mulling over the idea of the Anthropocene, a proposed new epoch in the history of the Earth that would encompass the years in which people have had profound effects on the planet's workings.
自2008年以来,地质学家一直在研究人类纪这一理念，人类纪是在地球历史上提出的新纪元，其囊括了人们深刻地影响地球的运作的年代。

Most often, discussion of the Anthropocene revolves around how atmospheric chemistry has changed since the beginning of the industrial revolution.
大多数时候,人类纪的讨论大多是围绕着从工业革命开始大气化学有何种变化进行的。

Sometimes the effects of new terrestrial ecosystems, in the form of fields, pastures and plantations, are also considered.
有时新型陆地系统所产生的影响也考虑在内。

To date, though, how the Anthropocene has created new ecosystems in the oceans as well as on land has not been much examined.
到目前为止,然而人类纪是如何创造新型海洋及陆地生态系统并未做过多的研究。

Such ecosystems are, nevertheless, emerging—as Tracy Mincer of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution,
不过这样的生态系统在《环境科技》杂志中有所描述，

in Massachusetts, and Linda Amaral-Zettler of the Marine Biological Laboratory, also in Woods Hole, describe in Environmental Science and Technology.
是由马萨诸塞州伍兹霍尔海洋学研究所的特蕾西·明瑟以及伍兹霍尔海洋学研究所海洋生物研究室的琳达阿玛拉尔-特勒联合提出的。

The malign effect of floating plastic debris on seabirds, turtles and other sea creatures is well known.
众所周知，漂浮的塑料碎片对海鸟海龟以及其他海洋生物有负面影响。

But, as Dr Mincer and Dr Amaral-Zettler have discovered, plastic debris also provides a new habitat for organisms small enough to take advantage of it.
但是,正如明瑟及阿玛拉尔-特勒两位博士已经发现的一样，塑料碎片还给有机体提供了一个小型足以充分利用全新的栖息地。

The two researchers collected pieces of plastic from various sites in the North Atlantic.
两位研究员从北大西洋的不同地点收集塑料碎片。

They then examined each using DNA analysis, and also an electron microscope, to see what was living on it.
他们然后用DNA分析仪、电子显微镜检测每一个，观测其上生活着何种生物。

Lots of things were.
有很多生物。

Altogether, they discovered about 50 species of single-celled plant, animal and bacterial life.
总之,他们发现约50种单细胞植物、动物和细菌的踪迹。

Each bit of debris was, in effect, a tiny ecosystem.
确切地说，每块碎片是一个小型的生态系统。

As with many ecosystems, the bottom of the food chain was occupied by things that photosynthesise.
正如诸多生态系统一样，食物链的底层被光合作用的生物占据着。

These included unicellular algae called diatoms and dinoflagellates, and photosynthetic bacteria known as cyanobacteria.
这些包括名为硅藻和甲藻的单细胞藻类和蓝藻的光合细菌。

Usually, such creatures swim freely in the ocean.
通常,这些生物在海洋里自由自在地游荡。

They therefore have to work hard to stay near the surface, where light for photosynthesis is abundant.
因此他们必须努力保持在表层水域，因为那里的进行光进行光合所需的阳光是充裕的。

By hitching a ride on a piece of floating plastic, they can stay near the surface without effort.
通过搭乘漂浮塑料这一顺风车,他们可以毫不费力地呆在表层。

Where plants abound, herbivores will not be far behind.
植物比比皆是的地方食草动物的出现也不会落后。

These, Dr Mincer and Dr Amaral-Zettler found in the form of dinoflagellates,some of which like to snack on smaller creatures to supplement their photosynthesis.
明瑟及阿玛拉尔-特勒两位博士以甲藻的形式发现了食草动物的存在,一些甲藻喜欢吃小型生物作为他们光合作用的补充。

They also found predators on the herbivores, in the form of ciliates and predator bacteria, which feed on other bacteria.
他们还发现食草动物的捕食者，如纤毛虫以及以其他细菌为食的捕食细菌。

Except for top predators—the type that themselves prey on predators—the two researchers thus discovered a classic web of food chains of the sort familiar from ecology text books.
除了顶级捕食者外，两位研究人员发现了一个与生态学课本上相似的经典的食物网。

And they also, and perhaps most pertinently from the human point of view, found evidence for one other part of such a food web: the decomposers.
或许从人类的观点来看最为适切的他们还发现了食物网的另一部分：分解者。

Plastics are energy-rich substances, which is why many of them burn so readily.
塑料是能源丰富的物质,这就是为什么他们中的许多容易燃烧的原因。

Any organism that could unlock and use that energy would do well in the Anthropocene.
任何可以分解和使用那些能源的生物在人类纪将会取得先机。

Terrestrial bacteria and fungi which can manage this trick are already familiar to experts in the field.
掌握这种技能的陆地上的细菌及真菌是这个领域的专家。

Dr Mincer and Dr Amaral-Zettler found evidence of them on their marine plastic, too.
明瑟及阿玛拉尔-特勒两位博士在海洋塑料上也发现了它们的踪迹。

They noticed many of their pieces of debris sported surface pits around two microns across.
他们发现很多塑料碎片的运动表面周围有大约两微米的凹坑。

Such pits are about the size of a bacterial cell. Closer examination showed that some of these pits did, indeed, contain bacteria,
凹坑与细菌一般大小。进一步的研究显示这些凹坑中的一部分确实含有细菌，

and that in several cases these bacteria were dividing and thus, by the perverse arithmetic of biological terminology, multiplying.
在部分状况下细菌正在分裂，因此根据生物学的反常计算其数量正在递增。

Though the two researchers have not yet proved the bugs in the pits are actually eating the plastic, that hypothesis seems a good bet.
尽管两位研究员至今未找到凹坑中的细菌是以塑料为食的证据，那个假说就好像是一场赌博。

And if they are, it suggests plastic pollution in the ocean may not hang around as long as has often been feared.
如果假说是正确的，这就意味着海洋塑料污染可能不如担心的那么持久。

Less encouragingly, Dr Mincer and Dr Amaral-Zettler also found cholera-like bacteria in their tiny floating ecosystems.
令人扫兴的是，明瑟及阿玛拉尔-特勒两位博士在漂浮的小型生态系统中发现了类似于霍乱的细菌。

Both fish and seabirds act as vectors for cholera,so anywhere that such creatures might pick up cholera bugs is something worth keeping an eye on.
鱼类或者是海鸟都充当着霍乱病菌的载体，所以任何使这些生物可能携带霍乱病菌的地区都值得密切关注。

The researchers paint an intriguing picture of the adaptability of nature, and provide another piece of the jigsaw that is the Anthropocene.
研究者就大自然的适应性描绘了一幅耐人寻味的画面，并提供了人类纪的另一块拼图。

Conservationists intent on preserving charismatic megafauna have reason to lament the spread of plastics through the ocean.
致力于保护引人好奇的大型动物的环保人士有理由担心海洋塑料污染的蔓延。

But those interested in smaller critters have been given a whole, new sphere—the plastisphere—to study.
但是却给了那些对小型生物感兴趣的环保人士一个全新的视角——塑料星球。