海豚要想找到配偶 必须搞好兄弟情(上)

This is Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Karen Hopkin.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是凯伦·霍普金。

It’s great to have friends. Especially if you’re an Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin.

有朋友真是太棒了。尤其是如果你是一只印度-太平洋宽吻海豚的话。

Because new research shows that the males who are the most popular with the lads are also the most successful with the ladies.

新的研究表明，最受雄性欢迎的雄性海豚在雌性海豚中也最受欢迎。

Researchers describe how these affable marine mammals maintain and leverage their complex social connections in a pair of papers in the journal Current Biology.

研究人员在《当代生物学》期刊上发表了两篇论文，论文中描述了这些和蔼友善的海洋哺乳动物是如何维持和利用它们复杂的社会关系的。

Male dolphins form lifelong cooperative relationships.

雄性海豚会形成终生的合作关系。

Stephanie King of the University of Bristol.

布里斯托尔大学的斯蒂芬妮·金说。

She’s been studying the dolphin population that inhabits Shark Bay…a UNESCO World Heritage site off the coast of western Australia.

她一直在研究鲨鱼湾的海豚种群，鲨鱼湾位于澳大利亚西部海岸，是联合国教科文组织世界遗产保护地。

By studying populations like the Shark Bay dolphins for many years, we start to see the complex ways they maintain their important social relationships.

通过多年来对鲨鱼湾海豚等种群的研究，我们开始注意到它们维持重要社会关系的复杂方式。

These connections are more than casual acquaintanceships.

这些联系不仅仅是偶然的相识。

They’re crucial for the dolphins to be able to fend off rivals and secure mates.

它们对海豚击退对手、获得配偶至关重要。

When navigating their social world, it is those males that are more adept at building strong friendships that are ultimately more successful.

在社交世界中，那些更擅长建立牢固友谊的雄性海豚最终会更成功。

So what do these aquatic alliances look like?

那么，这些海洋动物联盟会是什么样子的呢？

In Shark Bay, every male is embedded in a social network consisting of 4 to 14 males.

在鲨鱼湾，每只雄性海豚都会进入一个由4到14只雄性海豚组成的社交网络中。

Livia Gerber of the University of New South Wales, Sydney.

悉尼新南威尔士大学的莉维亚·格伯说。

These 4 to 14 males are also known as second order alliances and they are the core social unit of the male bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay.

这4到14只雄性宽吻海豚也被称为二级联盟，它们是鲨鱼湾雄性宽吻海豚的核心社交单位。

This dolphin party consists of unrelated individuals of a similar age that remain together for decades.

这一群海豚是由一些年龄相仿但没有血缘关系的海豚组成的，它们在一起生活了几十年。

Now, when one of these dolphins is looking for love, he’ll select one or two wingmen or maybe fin-pals from this larger posse to help him find a fertile female.

现在，当其中一只海豚求爱时，这只海豚会从这一大群海豚中选择一到两个哥们儿来帮助他找到可生育的雌性海豚。

While it was previously known that males have to cooperate in order to sire offspring in Shark Bay, it wasn’t known which male is the most successful one.

虽然之前已经获悉，鲨鱼湾雄性海豚为了繁衍后代必须进行合作，但却不知道哪只雄性海豚会最成功。

Is it the male with the most experience?

是最有经验的雄性海豚吗？

The one with the largest territory?

是领地最大的那个雄性海豚吗？

Or is there something about the bromance that holds the key to reproductive success?

还是兄弟情谊是成功繁衍后代的关键？

To answer this question, I therefore looked at the genetic profiles of more than 400 dolphins in Shark Bay and carried out paternity tests.

为了回答这个问题，我研究了鲨鱼湾400多只海豚的基因档案，并进行了亲子鉴定。

Once she identified the daddies, she could determine what quality they shared.

一旦她确定了这些父亲的身份，她就能确定它们有什么共同的特征。

I was quite surprised by my results because they were contrasting to so many other species, where the oldest males sire the most offspring or the males with the largest territories.

我对研究结果感到非常惊讶，因为这些海豚与许多其他物种形成了对比，年纪最大的雄性海豚或是拥有最大领地的雄性海豚繁殖了最多的后代。

As opposed to what we see in these other species, male bottlenose dolphins that have the strongest social bonds and multiple strong social bonds—so the most popular males—sire the most offspring.

与我们在其他物种中看到的情况相反，拥有最强社会纽带和多种强社会纽带的雄性宽吻海豚--即最受欢迎的雄性海豚--繁衍了最多的后代。