音頻科普:野生鳴禽能學(xué)習新曲調?
Researchers taught two dozen wild sparrows new songs, by playing them the recordings of sparrows that live thousands of miles away. Jason G. Goldman reports.
研究人員播放數千英里以外的麻雀錄音,教會(huì )了二十幾只野麻雀的新歌。Jason G. Goldman報道。
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杰森?G.?戈德曼(Jason G. Goldman)
翻譯:張朵兒
審校:張清越
Only a few kinds of animals are known to learn their vocalizations from listening to others. Us, of course. Elephants. Bats. Cetaceans—whales and dolphins. Pinnipeds—walruses, seals and sea lions. And parrots, hummingbirds and songbirds. That's it.
據現在的了解,只有少數動(dòng)物是通過(guò)傾聽(tīng)他人來(lái)學(xué)習發(fā)聲的。人類(lèi)顯然是其一,還有大象、蝙蝠、部分鯨類(lèi),如鯨魚(yú)和海豚,和鰭足類(lèi)動(dòng)物如海象、海豹和海獅。鸚鵡,蜂鳥(niǎo)和鳴禽(songbird)也可以。就只有這些。
"When your cat meows or your dog barks, it does that because it has genetically inherited that sound. But birds are like us, young animals have to hear adults in order to develop normal sounds."
“貓叫、狗吠都是遺傳自基因里的聲音。但是鳥(niǎo)類(lèi)和人類(lèi)一樣,幼年時(shí)必須聽(tīng)到成年個(gè)體的聲音才能學(xué)會(huì )發(fā)聲。”
University of Windsor biologist Daniel Mennill.
溫莎大學(xué)生物學(xué)家丹尼爾·門(mén)尼爾(Daniel Mennill)說(shuō)。
There have been hundreds of conventional experiments done in laboratories with captive birds that support the idea that young birds learn to sing by listening to older birds. These studies also taught us that birds, like humans, have what's called a "sensitive period" early in life, a time when they are most disposed to learn how to vocalize from their elders.
在實(shí)驗室里,早已進(jìn)行過(guò)了數百次傳統實(shí)驗。通過(guò)關(guān)在籠子里的鳥(niǎo)類(lèi)試驗證明,幼鳥(niǎo)要通過(guò)聽(tīng)成年鳥(niǎo)的聲音來(lái)學(xué)習唱歌。這些研究還表示,鳥(niǎo)類(lèi)和人類(lèi)一樣,在幼年期會(huì )有一個(gè)所謂的“敏感時(shí)期”。這個(gè)時(shí)期,它們最容易向長(cháng)輩學(xué)習如何發(fā)聲。
But nobody ever did one of those experiments with wild birds. Observational studies, yes. But no true experiments. Until now, thanks to some wild savanna sparrows.
但是還沒(méi)有人在野生鳥(niǎo)類(lèi)上做過(guò)類(lèi)似的實(shí)驗,有過(guò)觀(guān)察性研究,但沒(méi)有過(guò)真正的實(shí)驗。非常感謝野生稀樹(shù)草原麻雀(savanna sparrow)給了我們一個(gè)在野外進(jìn)行真正實(shí)驗的機會(huì )。
"So this population of savanna sparrows lives on an island in the Bay of Fundy in eastern North America, and it's been studied since the 1960s, so we know a lot about this population. It means we know every kind of sound that has ever been uttered by a savanna sparrow in this population over the course of many decades."
“這群稀樹(shù)草原麻雀生活在北美東部芬迪灣附近的一個(gè)島上。自20世紀60年代開(kāi)始就有團隊對它們展開(kāi)研究,所以我們對這群麻雀比較了解。這意味著(zhù),我們知道近幾十年來(lái)這群麻雀在不同時(shí)期的叫聲。”
Mennill and his team installed a series of loudspeakers on the island, and they played new tunes that the sparrows would never have heard otherwise.
門(mén)尼爾和他的團隊在島上安裝了一系列揚聲器。他們播放一些麻雀們從來(lái)沒(méi)聽(tīng)到過(guò)的調子。?
"The kinds of sounds that we broadcast to the animals were based on savanna sparrows, the same species, but recordings collected on the western coast of North America, many thousands of miles away from our study population."
“我們播放的聲音也來(lái)自稀樹(shù)草原麻雀——是同一物種,但是來(lái)自數千英里外的北美西海岸的鳥(niǎo)群。”
For six years, the researchers broadcast these novel songs to five cohorts of sparrows.
研究人員持續六年將這些新穎的“歌曲”播放給了五組麻雀聽(tīng)。?
?"Lo and behold, this bird that arrived to breed in the spring of 2014 opened his beak and sang a song that was a perfect match with one of our stimuli."
?“瞧,這只在2014年春天出生的鳥(niǎo)張嘴唱了一首與我們播放的音樂(lè )完美搭配的歌。”
In all, 26 birds learned their songs from loudspeakers rather than from other birds. And they had the same survival and reproductive success as all the other birds. All but one successfully mated and defended their territories. And four additional birds learned songs from birds that had originally learned from the loudspeakers.
總共有26只鳥(niǎo)學(xué)習了揚聲器里的歌曲,而不是同類(lèi)的叫聲。它們與同類(lèi)具有相同的生存和繁殖能力。除了一只之外,所有人都成功完成了交配并保衛了自己的領(lǐng)土。還有另外四只鳥(niǎo)又從最初通過(guò)揚聲器學(xué)叫聲的鳥(niǎo)類(lèi)身上學(xué)習了發(fā)聲。
"What we have now is a very unique, maybe a globally unique population of animals, where some of the animals sing population typical songs, that sound like other animals in their breeding population. But our experimental subjects who are living there now, are singing songs that are slightly different."
“我們現在有一個(gè)非常獨特的,也許是全球獨一無(wú)二的動(dòng)物群體。其中一部分唱的是本土的曲調,而另一部分,我們的實(shí)驗對象卻唱得略有不同。“?
By returning to the island year after year, Mennill can study not only vocal learning, but the transmission of culture from one generation to the next. There’s a lot going on in those bird brains.
通過(guò)每年不斷的回訪(fǎng),門(mén)尼爾不僅可以觀(guān)察麻雀聲音上的學(xué)習情況,還能看到一代代更迭后的變化。麻雀的腦中變化復雜著(zhù)呢。
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