茫茫大海，小小的珊瑚蟲是怎樣找到新的歸宿的呢？科學(xué)家們決定研究一下這些如跳蚤一般大小的珊瑚蟲又是怎樣找到礁石的。研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，珊瑚幼蟲身上像頭發(fā)一樣的纖毛截獲了聲波，以此找到礁石。
How do baby coral find a new home in the open ocean? They listen—very closely—for reef sounds. Scientists at the University of Bristol in England had already discovered in the last few years that baby fish who live among coral use sound to find the reefs. So they decided to check out the coral larvae themselves. These are tiny creatures, the size of a flea. The researchers created so-called choice chambers. When the chambers were silent, the larvae floated about, equally distributed. But when the scientists played sounds of reefs, featuring the murmurs of fish and crustaceans, the larvae swarmed toward the speakers. What’s even more interesting: fish larvae have anatomical features for detecting sound. But coral larvae have no such features. So how are they hearing? The researchers hypothesize that the sound waves are intercepted by cilia—hairlike structures—on the larvae. The work was published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE. [Mark J. A. Vermeij et al., MoxM] Here’s why this is important. Coral reefs around the world are threatened. Coral larvae could be deterred by noise from human sources. So managing noise pollution could be one more angle in the effort to save the reefs.
茫茫大海，小小的珊瑚蟲是怎樣找到新的歸宿的呢？用聽(tīng)的，用心聽(tīng)礁石之聲。 英國(guó)布里斯托大學(xué)的科學(xué)家們?cè)缭趲啄昵熬桶l(fā)現(xiàn)和珊瑚蟲一起生活的小魚是通過(guò)聲音找到礁石的。于是，科學(xué)家們決定研究一下這些如跳蚤一般大小的珊瑚蟲又是怎樣找到礁石的。 研究人員發(fā)明了一種選擇箱。箱內(nèi)安靜時(shí)，珊瑚幼蟲隨處游蕩，分布均勻；不過(guò)，當(dāng)科學(xué)家們播放礁石的聲音，伴隨著魚類、甲殼類的低聲細(xì)語(yǔ)時(shí)，這些幼蟲就會(huì)統(tǒng)統(tǒng)涌向聲源。 不過(guò)，更有趣的是，魚類本身就具有偵查聲音的解剖學(xué)特征，而珊瑚幼蟲卻沒(méi)有。那它們是怎么聽(tīng)的呢？于是，研究人員假設(shè)，珊瑚幼蟲身上像頭發(fā)一樣的纖毛截獲了聲波。（詳情請(qǐng)見(jiàn)《公共科學(xué)圖書館·綜合》） 這樣研究結(jié)果意義重大——目前珊瑚礁處境危險(xiǎn)，人類制造的噪音很有可能會(huì)嚇到珊瑚蟲，因此，控制噪音也不失為拯救珊瑚礁的好辦法。