VOA常速英语:Scientists: ’Rats Causing Big Damage to World Coral Reefs’

According to the study, rats have decimated seabird populations across 90 percent of the world’s island archipelagos. Professor Nick Graham of Lancaster University in Britain says at a recent visit at the Chagos archipelago in the Indian Ocean,there were stark differences between the islands populated with rats compared to the ones that were rude and free.
研究表明，世界上百分之九十的群岛上，海鸟数量因为老鼠而几句减少。英国兰开斯特大学的尼克·格雷厄姆教授说，最近在访问印度洋查戈斯群岛时他发现，有老鼠群居的岛屿与那些原生的无鼠岛屿有着明显的区别。

Where there’s rats, the sky’s empty, the island’s very quiet. You go to an island with no rats, the sky’s full of sea birds, it’s very noisy and it smells.It’s very pungent. You can smell the guano or the bird poo in the air. The scientists found guano which is sometimes used as fertilizer to be crucial to the functioning of tropical ecosystems.
有老鼠的地方，天空空空如也，岛屿非常安静。如果是一个没有老鼠的小岛，天空充满了海鸟，声音非常嘈杂，而且气味难闻，很刺鼻。你可以闻到空气中鸟粪的味道。科学家们发现，有时用作肥料的鸟粪对热带生态系统的功能至关重要。

The seabirds, they’re flying great distances away from the islands and they’re feeding in the what we call the pelagic ecosystem so the deep areas of the ocean.And then there they’re flying back to the islands to roost and to breed and that’s when they’re depositing these rich nutrients that they’ve captured in the open ocean back onto the islands.
海鸟，它们飞到离岛屿很远的地方，它们在我们所说的远洋生态系统中觅食，也就是海洋深处。然后它们飞回岛上栖息繁殖，这时它们把在公海上捕获的丰富营养物质投放回岛上。

Now when those nutrients go onto the coral reef which was showing that it’s boosting the productivity and the functioning of those reefs.Rats eat bird eggs, chicks and even adult birds. Rat-free Islands saw significantly more sea bird life and had nitrogen in the soil which made its way into the sea benefiting filter-feeding sponges, turf algae and fish.
这些营养物质进入珊瑚礁中，研究表明它们可以提高珊瑚礁的生产力和功能。老鼠会食用鸟蛋、雏鸟、甚至成年鸟类。没有老鼠的岛屿上会有更多的海鸟，其土壤中含有氮，这些氮进入海洋，有益于滤食性海绵动物、草皮藻类和鱼类的生长。

Fish, unique in coral reefs and that they provide important processes or functions that help reefs be healthy and to bounce back from disturbances.These are things like clearing away algae following disturbances, so new corals can settle and grow back on the reef. The number of fish was also 50 percent greater in the waters of rat-free islands.
鱼类，在保护珊瑚礁中有着独特的作用，它们在帮助珊瑚礁健康并免受外界干扰的过程中，扮演着重要角色。就像海藻清除干扰后，这样新的珊瑚就可以在珊瑚礁上定居和生长了。在无鼠岛屿的水域中，鱼类的数量也增加了百分之五十。

Niack Miguel VOA news
美国之音记者Niack Miguel报道