?The hammerhead relatives consume copious amounts of sea grass, and have the digestive machinery to process it—making them true omnivores. Christopher Intagliata reports.錘頭鯊的親戚消耗大量的海草,并且有消化機(jī)制來(lái)消化——這使它們成為真正的雜食動(dòng)物??死锼雇懈?/span>·因塔利亞塔報(bào)道。
? 撰文\播音:克里斯托弗·因塔利亞塔(Christopher Intagliata) 翻譯:邱燕寧 審校:郭曉 Sharks aren't typically thought of as vegetarians. Or even omnivores. But about 10 years ago, scientists documented a dainty relative of the hammerhead shark,?known as a bonnethead shark, consuming copious amounts of sea grass. 鯊魚通常不被認(rèn)為是素食主義者或者雜食動(dòng)物。但大約10年前,科學(xué)家記錄了錘頭鯊的一種小巧的近親,名叫窄頭雙髻鯊,它們消耗了大量的海草。 "A lot of people kind of just thought they were consuming it incidentally, after going after crabs and squid and other little invertebrates that live in the sea grass meadows." Samantha Leigh,?a PhD candidate at the University of California, Irvine. "So everyone thought they were kind of just passing it through their system and not really getting anything from it."? “很多人都只是認(rèn)為,它們?cè)谧汾s螃蟹、烏賊和其他生活在海草場(chǎng)中的小型無(wú)脊椎動(dòng)物時(shí),順便吃了海草。”加州大學(xué)爾灣分校博士生Samantha Leigh如是說(shuō)。“所以每個(gè)人都認(rèn)為海草只是通過(guò)了它們的消化系統(tǒng),鯊魚并沒(méi)有從中得到任何東西。” So Leigh and her colleagues hauled five of the small sharks back to a Florida lab, and put them on a three-week diet: 90 percent sea grass, 10 percent squid. And analyzed the digestibility of that diet. Turns out, the sharks actually put on pounds, and were able to digest the sea grass just as well as young green sea turtles do.? 于是,Leigh和她的同事們把5條小鯊魚帶回了佛羅里達(dá)的實(shí)驗(yàn)室,讓它們進(jìn)行三周的特殊飲食計(jì)劃:90%的海草,10%的烏賊。之后他們分析了鯊魚對(duì)這些食物的消化率。事實(shí)證明,鯊魚的體重的確增加了,它們能像年輕的綠海龜一樣消化海草。 "It seems like even though the bonnethead shark has what scientists would deem a carnivorous gut, they are definitely acting like omnivores. So there's probably something going on, on probably a microbial level, that's helping them break down this sea grass." The full nutrition info is in the?Proceedings of the Royal Society B. [Samantha C. Leigh et al.,?Seagrass digestion by a notorious ‘carnivore’] “看起來(lái),盡管窄頭雙髻鯊擁有科學(xué)家認(rèn)為的食肉腸道,但它們的行為確實(shí)像雜食動(dòng)物。”所以可能有某種東西,比如在微生物水平上,幫助它們分解海草。 完整的營(yíng)養(yǎng)信息刊登在《英國(guó)皇家學(xué)會(huì)學(xué)報(bào)B》(Proceedings of the Royal Society B)上。 The study also gives coastal ecosystem managers something new to chew on: these sharks are like lawn mowers, trimming the sea grass, digesting it, and, yes, recycling it. "So they likely play more of a stabilizing role in food web dynamics. They're not a top apex predator. And they're probably playing a large role in nutrient transport in those sea grass meadow ecosystems as well."? 這項(xiàng)研究也給了海岸生態(tài)系統(tǒng)管理者一些新的東西去研究:這些鯊魚就像割草機(jī),修剪海草,消化并循環(huán)利用它們。“因此,它們?cè)谑澄锞W(wǎng)動(dòng)態(tài)中扮演的角色更更像是個(gè)穩(wěn)定者。它們不是頂級(jí)掠食者。它們可能在這些海草草甸生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的營(yíng)養(yǎng)運(yùn)輸中也扮演著重要的角色。” As for whether we might convince?more?sharks to have a side salad with dinner? "I don't know that we'll be able to do that anytime soon." 至于我們是否可以讓更多的鯊魚在晚餐時(shí)吃些沙拉。“我不知道我們是否很快就能做到。”