这些濒临灭绝的鸟类正在遗忘它们的歌声

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Christopher Intagliata.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。

Some birds are relatively easy to study. Ross Crates studies the ones that aren’t.

有些鸟类研究起来相对容易。罗斯·克拉茨研究了那些没有那么容易研究的鸟类。

He’s part of the Difficult Bird Research Group at the Australian National University.

他是澳大利亚国立大学濒危鸟类研究小组的成员。

“All our study species are quite challenging to study for various reasons, mostly because they’re really rare and highly mobile.”

“出于各种原因，我们研究的所有物种都非常具有挑战性，主要是因为这些物种非常稀有，流动性很强。”

One of those “difficult birds” is the critically endangered regent honeyeater.

其中一种“难研究的鸟”是极度濒危的王摄蜜鸟。

They’re medium-sized songbirds—with bright yellow tails and black-and-white chests.

它们是中等大小的鸣禽--有着明亮的黄色尾巴以及黑白相间的胸部。

And though they once roamed Australia in flocks of hundreds, fewer than 300 remain in the wild today.

尽管它们曾成群地在澳大利亚游荡，但现在野外只剩下不到300只了。

Crates and his team tracked the birds over a five-year period.

克拉茨和他的团队对这些鸟进行了为期五年的跟踪调查。

If they encountered a male, they’d record his song.

如果他们遇到了雄鸟，就会录下它的歌声。

And they noted whether the males were paired up with females.

他们还注意到雄性是否与雌性进行配对。

They found that a quarter of the birds sang variations of the traditional honeyeater song.

他们发现，四分之一的鸟儿唱着传统王摄蜜鸟的歌曲变调。

And 12 percent of the birds weren’t singing honeyeater songs at all.

12%的鸟根本没有唱王摄蜜鸟的歌。

They were parroting different species’ songs—like this ... or this one...

它们在模仿不同物种的歌声--就像这个...或者这个..。

That could mean bad news for the birds’ future—because males singing those untraditional songs were also less likely to be paired up with a mate, compared to their counterparts who sang the standard tune.

这对鸟类的未来来说可能是个坏消息，因为与唱标准曲调的雄鸟相比，唱非传统歌曲的雄鸟更不可能找到配偶。

“As females breed less, then there’s obviously fewer males in that generation to teach the next generation.

“随着雌鸟繁殖的减少，那一代能教下一代唱歌的雄鸟明显减少。”

A higher proportion of males sing weird songs. And you get a bit of a positive feedback toward extinction.”

雄鸟唱奇怪歌曲的比例更高。你会得到一些关于灭绝的正反馈。

The work appears in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

这项研究发表在《英国皇家学会学报B》上。

Crates says the honeyeaters’ loss of songs equates to a loss of culture.

克拉茨说，摄蜜鸟失去歌曲就等同于失去了文化。

“It’s a complete sort of, you know, animal equivalent of the loss of indigenous languages, whether that be Native American languages or Aboriginal Australian languages here.”

这种动物的情形完全，等同于土著语言的消失，无论是美洲土著语言还是澳大利亚土著语言。”

He says he hopes it serves as a warning that all is not well in Australia’s natural world—and that we must do more to tackle climate change and conservation if we hope to save it.

他表示，他希望这是一个警告，提醒人们澳大利亚的自然世界并不是一切都好--如果我们希望拯救它，我们必须采取更多措施来应对气候变化和保护环境。

Thanks for listening for Scientific American's 60-second Science. I'm Christopher Intagliata.

谢谢大家收听科学美国人——60秒科学。我是克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔。