科學60秒:珊瑚礁的呼喚
來源：滬江聽寫酷
2011-04-14 08:30
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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 ___1___, equally distributed. But when the scientists played sounds of reefs, featuring the ___2___ of fish and crustaceans, the larvae ___3___ 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 ___4___ by cilia—hairlike structures—on the larvae. The work was published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE.
Here’s why this is important. Coral reefs around the world are threatened. Coral larvae could be ___5___ by noise from human sources. So managing noise pollution could be one more angle in the effort to save the reefs.
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 ___1___, equally distributed. But when the scientists played sounds of reefs, featuring the ___2___ of fish and crustaceans, the larvae ___3___ 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 ___4___ by cilia—hairlike structures—on the larvae. The work was published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE.
Here’s why this is important. Coral reefs around the world are threatened. Coral larvae could be ___5___ by noise from human sources. So managing noise pollution could be one more angle in the effort to save the reefs.
floated about
murmurs
swarmed
intercepted
deterred
茫茫大海，小小的珊瑚蟲是怎樣找到新的歸宿的呢？用聽的，用心聽礁石之聲。
英國布里斯托大學的科學家們早在幾年前就發(fā)現(xiàn)和珊瑚蟲一起生活的小魚是通過聲音找到礁石的。于是，科學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，珊瑚幼蟲隨處游蕩，分布均勻；不過，當科學家們播放礁石的聲音，伴隨著魚類、甲殼類的低聲細語時，這些幼蟲就會統(tǒng)統(tǒng)涌向聲源。
不過，更有趣的是，魚類本身就具有偵查聲音的解剖學特征，而珊瑚幼蟲卻沒有。那它們是怎么聽的呢？于是，研究人員假設，珊瑚幼蟲身上像頭發(fā)一樣的纖毛截獲了聲波。（詳情請見《公共科學圖書館·綜合》）
這樣研究結果意義重大——目前珊瑚礁處境危險，人類制造的噪音很有可能會嚇到珊瑚蟲，因此，控制噪音也不失為拯救珊瑚礁的好辦法。
