经济学人下载:动物行为(1)

Tenants who don't pay the rent are a bane of landlords everywhere.
不付房租的房客让世界各地的房东头疼。

And landlords who use heavy tactics to enforce payment are similarly a bane of tenants.
而使用高压手段强制要求付款的房东同样让租户痛苦。

Nor are these problems confined to human beings.
这些问题并不局限于人类。

Property-owning cichlid fish seem as ruthless about receiving what they are owed
和19世纪纽约下东区任何廉租房业主一样，

as any 19th-century tenement holder in the Lower East Side of New York.
拥有房产的鲷鱼似乎也会为了得到应得的东西而变得冷酷。

The fish in question, Neolamprologus pulcher, inhabit Lake Tanganyika in east Africa.
这种名为美新亮丽鲷的鱼生活在东非的坦噶尼喀湖。

They are co-operative breeders, meaning that dominant individuals do the breeding and subordinates assist in various ways,
它们是合作繁殖者，也就是说，占优势的个体负责繁殖，而从属的个体则以各种方式提供帮助，

in exchange for immediate survival-enhancing benefits that may lead to the ultimate prize of becoming dominant themselves.
作为交换，它们可以立即获得提高生存能力的好处，而这些好处最终可能导致它们成为支配者。

In the case of N. pulcher the main benefit is having somewhere to live.
对于美新亮丽鲷而言，主要的好处就是拥有居住地。

Dwellings, in the form of shelters dug out from sand under rocks, are controlled by dominant pairs.
在岩石下用沙子挖出的庇护所形式的住所，是由支配者控制的。

These dominants permit subordinates to share their accommodation,
这些支配者允许从属分享它们的住处，

and those subordinates pay for the privilege by keeping the property in good repair
这些从属通过保持财产的良好维修和保护支配者的鱼卵

and defending the dominants' eggs and fry against predators.
和鱼苗免受捕食者的侵害来支付自己所能享有的特权。

Though co-operative breeding by vertebrates has evolved several times
尽管脊椎动物的合作繁殖已经进化了好几次

(famous examples include the meerkat mongooses of southern Africa and the scrub jays of Florida),
（著名的例子包括非洲南部的猫鼬猫鼬和佛罗里达的灌丛鸦），

the question of how rental payments are enforced has never been definitively settled.
但如何执行租金支付的问题从未得到最终解决。

The presumption is that dominants punish subordinate defaulters.
有种假设是支配者会惩罚下级违反者。

But it is hard to prove, by observing wild animals, that this is what is happening.
但是通过观察野生动物，很难证明这种假设。