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1.媒体来源:
外媒 sciencealert
2.记者署名:
By TESSA KOUMOUNDOUROS
3.完整新闻标题:
One 'Super Predator' Instills More Fear in Marsupials Than Any Other Creature
研究证实人类是地球上主要的恐惧根源
4.完整新闻内文:
One 'Super Predator' Instills More Fear in Marsupials Than Any Other Creature
NATURE
27 May 2024
By TESSA KOUMOUNDOUROS
Dogs were runner up. (Milan Krasula//Getty Images)
一种“超级捕食者”比任何其他生物都更让有袋动物感到恐惧
自然
2024 年 5 月 27 日
经过泰莎·库蒙杜罗斯
狗获得亚军。 （米兰克拉苏拉//盖蒂图片社）
Mammals likely have as diverse a set of opinions as they have variety in
their physical forms, but there may be one thing they can all agree on:
humans are their greatest fear.
哺乳动物可能有各种各样的观点，就像它们的身体形态多种多样一样，但它们可能都同意
一件事：人类是它们最大的恐惧。
Multiple studies in the Northern Hemisphere show the sound of our voices
evokes more terror than other apex predators and now new research in the
Southern Hemisphere reaches the same conclusion.
Australian marsupials studied in Tasmania were at least 2.4 times more likely
to flee from human voices than the sound of any other predator considered.
北半球的多项研究表明，我们的声音比其他顶级掠食者更能引起恐惧，现在南半球的新研
究也得出了同样的结论。
在塔斯马尼亚州研究的澳洲有袋动物逃离人类声音的可能性至少是任何其他掠食者声音
的 2.4 倍。
"Wildlife worldwide evidently recognize that it is humans who are the largest
source of danger," University of Tasmania ecologist Katherine McGann and
colleagues write in their paper.
And they're not wrong.
From exploiting more than 300 times more vertebrate species than comparable
predators, to our global scale ecological destruction, we humans are by far
the most lethal mammals on the planet.
塔斯马尼亚大学生态学家凯瑟琳·麦克甘及其同事在论文中写道： “全世界的野生动物
显然认识到人类是最大的危险来源。”
他们并没有错。
从比同类掠食者多利用300 倍以上的脊椎动物物种，到全球的生态破坏，我们人类是迄今
为止地球上最致命的哺乳动物。
Last year researchers discovered mammals on the African savannah fear the
sound of humans even more than lions, so McGann and team were keen to see if
our voices also provoked the most fear in mammals that haven't evolved
alongside many large predators.
Australian marsupials are considered predator-naive because some have muted
or even absent reactions to signs of Northern Hemisphere predators like foxes
or dogs. This has allowed invasive predators to wreak havoc on many
vulnerable species.
去年，研究人员发现非洲大草原上的哺乳动物比狮子更害怕人类的声音，因此麦甘和团队
很想知道我们的声音是否也会引起那些没有与许多大型掠食者一起进化的哺乳动物最恐惧
。
澳洲有袋动物被认为是天真的掠食者，因为有些有袋动物对北半球捕食者（如狐狸或狗）
的迹象反应迟钝甚至没有反应。这使得入侵性捕食者对许多脆弱物种造成严重破坏。
The tammar wallaby (Notamacropus eugenii), for instance, only reacts to the
sight of dingoes, not their sounds. Ethologist Daniel Blumstein and team
suggest this may be because visual cues of predators are more distinct than
their vocalizations. For example, predators all have forward-facing eyes for
better depth perception.
Predator naivety in Australian marsupials has been attributed to the absence
of large mammalian predators on the continent for the last 50,000 years. But
such conclusions neglect the presence of humans.
例如，塔玛袋鼠（Notamacropus eugenii ）只对野狗的视线做出反应，而对它们的声音
没有反应。动物行为学家丹尼尔布鲁姆斯坦（Daniel Blumstein）和他的团队认为，这可
能是因为掠食者的视觉线索比它们的声音更清晰。例如，捕食者都有向前看的眼睛，以获
得更好的深度感知。
澳洲有袋动物对掠食者的天真被归因于过去五万年来该大陆缺乏大型哺乳动物捕食者。但
这样的结论忽略了人类的存在。
"This exemplifies what has long been a very common oversight in ecology,
which is not recognizing or considering the role of humans as predators,"
McGann and team point out.
So the researchers exposed wild kangaroos, wallabies, pademelons, and possums
to the sounds of sheep, dogs, Tasmanian devils, wolves, and humans. In 684
videos recording their responses to exposure, the marsupials fled 2.4 times
more often from the sound of humans than they did to the animal they reacted
second most to – dogs.
麦甘和团队指出：“这体现了生态学领域长期以来的一个非常普遍的疏忽，即没有认识到
或考虑人类作为捕食者的角色。”
因此，研究人员让野生袋鼠、小袋鼠、小袋鼠和负鼠接触绵羊、狗、塔斯马尼亚袋獾、狼
和人类的声音。在记录有袋动物对暴露反应的 684 个影片中，有袋动物因人类声音而逃
跑的次数是它们因第二大动物（狗）而逃跑的次数的 2.4 倍。
While brushtail possums were least likely to flee, they still displayed signs
of vigilance – rearing up on their hind legs.
"Our vigilance results corroborate that all four species significantly fear
humans," the authors write, "just as supplementary measures corroborated the
fear of humans in species with low proclivities to flee in the comparable
experiment in Africa (e.g. elephants)."
Oddly, introduced fallow deer, which the team also challenged, fled just as
often from the recordings of the other predators as they did from human
voices.
虽然刷尾负鼠逃跑的可能性最小，但它们仍然表现出警惕的迹象—用后腿直立。
作者写道：“我们的警觉性结果证实，所有四个物种都明显害怕人类，就像在非洲的类似
实验中，补充措施证实了逃离倾向较低的物种（例如大象）对人类的恐惧一样。
奇怪的是，研究小组也对引入的小鹿进行了挑战，它们从其他掠食者的录音中逃跑的次数
与从人类声音中逃跑的次数一样多。
The researchers suspect this may be a consequence of their intermittent
captivity and their very small founding genetic pool. Just 12 individuals
were introduced to Tasmania in 1829, so they may have remained
semi-domesticated.
But this appears to be an unusual exception, with animals from Africa, Asia,
Europe, North America, and now Australia all reacting most fearfully to our
voices.
研究人员怀疑这可能是由于它们间歇性圈养和其非常小的创始基因库造成的。 1829 年，
只有 12 只个体被引入塔斯马尼亚，因此它们可能仍处于半驯化状态。
但这似乎是一个不寻常的例外，来自非洲、亚洲、欧洲、北美和现在澳洲的动物都对我们
的声音做出了最可怕的反应。
Sadly, the continuous triggering of fear alone can reduce prey animal
populations across generations. Most animals can't avoid us for long these
days, either, as we're basically everywhere.
But we can make use of their fear for their own good too, such as dissuading
rhinos from entering areas with high poaching.
"We recommend the use of human playbacks to aid crop protection and to reduce
damage to native and endemic plants," McGann and colleagues suggest.
This research was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B:
Biological Sciences.
可悲的是，仅仅持续引发恐惧就会减少几代猎物的数量。如今，大多数动物也无法长时间
避开我们，因为我们基本上无所不在。
但我们也可以利用它们的恐惧来为自己谋福利，例如阻止犀牛进入偷猎率高的地区。
“我们建议使用人类回放来帮助保护作物并减少对本地和特有植物的损害，”McGann 及
其同事建议。
这项研究发表在《英国皇家学会学报 B：生物科学》。
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6.备注:
恐怖直立猿这称号可不是空穴来风...