The death of coral reefs in Australia may be doing more than wiping out habitats for fish: It may be changing their behavior.
澳大利亚珊瑚礁的死亡可能不仅仅摧毁鱼的栖息地,可能会改变它们的行为。
Researchers recently put young fish in controlled environments, half with healthy coral and the other half with bleached coral.
研究人员最近将幼鱼放在受控环境中,一半是健康的珊瑚,另一半是漂白的珊瑚。
Then they exposed them to a chemical that fish release when they're attacked. Young fish sense this alarm signal and associate it with the predator.
然后,他们放入鱼儿受到攻击时释放的化学物质。幼鱼感觉这个报警信号,并将其与捕食者联系在一起。
The problem is for one species of fish tested, only those in the living-coral environment hid when the chemical was released by researchers.
问题是对一种鱼进行测试,当研究人员释放化学物质时,只有生活在活珊瑚环境中的鱼会躲藏。
"Their counterparts on dead coral failed to pick up the scent," one researcher said.
一位研究人员表示:“生活在死亡珊瑚上的鱼没有闻到气味”。
The study says it's unclear whether these fish just didn't respond appropriately to the hypothetical predators or if they actually failed to learn what to do in case of an attack.
这项研究指出,目前还不清楚这些鱼只是对假设的捕食者未能做出适当的反应,或者它们没能在攻击的情况下学习该怎么办。
Australia's Great Barrier Reef is suffering a massive bleaching event right now. If fish's survival instincts are lost with it, a lot of Australia's biodiversity is at stake.
澳大利亚的大堡礁现在正遭受大规模的漂白。如果鱼的生存本能随之消失,澳大利亚的生物多样性面临危险。
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