康立得治疗仪骗局揭秘:性乱交的危险

性乱交的危险

Wednesday, 23 November 2011 Abbie Thomas

阿比.托马斯2011年11月23日,星期三

ABC

  发表在科学ABC上

Promiscuous birds hatch more dud chicks, according to new findings, which counter existing ideas about the evolution of promiscuity.

    按照新的发现,性乱交的鸟孵出更多有缺点的幼鸟,这反驳了目前存在的关于性乱交的演变观点.

Dr Jane Reid and Dr Rebecca Sardell from the University of Aberdeen report in the Proceedings of the Royal Society that when promiscuous song sparrows mate with birds other than their partner, these couplings produce worse quality offspring.

    简.里德博士和丽贝卡.桑德拉博士从阿伯丁大学报道,在动物王国社会的活动中,当性乱交的唱歌麻雀同他们配偶之外的伙伴交配时,与之相关联而产出的是较低质量的后代.

Many female birds are promiscuous and it's generally been assumed that this is because they can get better quality genes from a stranger than from their partner.

    许多雌鸟是性乱交的,而且有一个通常的假定那就是因为它们能从一个陌生者那里获得比他们的伴侣更优的基因.

However, Reid and Sardell found that song sparrow chicks sired by non-partner males actually had slightly less chance of surviving to breeding age (about 2 per cent less) than chicks fathered by their mother's regular partner.

    然而,里德和桑德拉发现唱歌麻雀的幼崽中,母麻雀同非固定性伴侣交配所生的小麻雀相比母麻雀同固定性伴侣麻雀所生小麻雀稍少的机会活到繁殖年龄(大约少于百分之二).

They also used a method called quantitative genetics to determine that non-partner males were less genetically fit than the female's regular partner.

    他们也用了一个办法,叫做数量遗传学来测定,母麻雀的非固定性伴侣的雄麻雀较之固定性伴侣麻雀有较不适合的遗传性.

The study looked at breeding behaviour in an isolated population of song sparrows living in grasslands on the island of Mandarte, off the coast of Canada. 

    这一注视繁殖行为的研究在一个隔离的唱歌麻雀群中进行,这一麻雀群生活在远离加拿大海岸的蒙大特岛的草原上.

Although these birds team up with a single mate for one or even several years, previous genetic studies have shown that about 26 per cent of chicks are sired by a male other than the female's partner.

    尽管那些鸟同单一的配偶在一起的时候有一年或者几年,先前的遗传学研究已经显示,大约百分之二十六的幼鸟是母鸟同配偶外的其他公鸟交配而产下的.

Unanswered questions

    没有解决的问题

So why would females bother being promiscuous if their chicks aren't benefiting?

    可是哎呀,如果它们的幼鸟不是有益的,那么雌鸟将如何迷惑雄鸟自己的忧乱交呢?

"That's a really good question to which I do not yet know the answer," says Reid.

    "那真是一个目前我还不能回答的好问题"里德说.

"That's one reason why I find my current results quite exciting - I think they will force us to reconsider the situation and rethink our under standing of the evolution of promiscuity."

   是这样一个原因为什么我发现我现在的结果非常兴奋--我想他们将促成我们重新考虑形势,并反思我们处于性乱交演变下的身份.

"One possibility might be that genes that cause promiscuity in females also cause promiscuity in males. If promiscuity is beneficial for males (in terms of the total number of offspring they leave) then the genes causing promiscuity could be maintained in a population, even if promiscuity is costly for females."

    "一种可能性是导致雌性性乱交的基因也发生在雄性身上.如果性乱交对雄性有好处,(就它们留下的后代的数量而言),那么导致性乱交 的基因可能会在一个种群里维持,即使性乱交对雌性来说是代价高昂的."

ABCCommenting on the study, avian behavioural biologist Dr Simon Griffith from Macquarie University says the approach Reid has taken is 'quite neat'.

    就这一研究发表看法,来自表夸里大学的鸟类动作生物学家西蒙.格里菲思博士说里德采用的方法是非常干净的.

"There's always been an argument that females must gain some benefit from being promiscuous, because the risk of being found cheating is that the partner won't care for the young as much or will desert her," he says.

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"But increasingly people aren't finding clear support for that idea. So we've had to start investigating why else might females be doing this."

    "一直存在一种争论那就是雌性必须从性乱交中获得某些益处,因为被发现欺骗的危险是伴侣将不再像过去一样照顾幼鸟或者将遗弃它."他说

    但是,人们一直以来也不能发现对此观点明确的支持.所以我们必须去调查为了什么其他的原因雌性会那么做.

Griffith says one reason promiscuous females are selected for may be to avoid inbreeding, or in case their partner is sterile. This would be especially important in an island environment, where these birds are found.

    格里菲思说性乱交的雌性选择这样做的一个原因可能是为了避免近亲交配,或者以免它们的伴侣没有生育能力.在那些鸟被发现的的这样一个岛上的环境里,这将成为一个特别重要的原因.

He says the costs of promiscuity found by Reid might seem small (a 2 per cent less change of chicks surviving to breeding age). 

    他说由里德发现的性乱交的代价可能看起来微不足道(也就一个百分之二的比例,小鸟能够设法存活到繁殖年龄的比例很少改变).

"But," says Griffith, "they are important, because evolution works incredibly slowly, on the basis of very small incremental changes from generation to generation".

    "但是",格里菲思说,"它们非常重要,因为演变进行的极为缓慢,在非常小的增加改变的基础上一代又一代".

Reid says her findings potentially have implications for human behaviour.

   里德说她的发现可能对人类的行为有意义.

"In terms of their mating system, humans are not really so different from socially monogamous birds and other mammals. In time, it may well be that studies of these wild populations do give us some insights into the evolution of our own social (and non-social!) reproductive systems," she says.

    "根据他们的交配制度,人类同社会性一雌一雄的鸟和其他哺乳动物没有什么不同.迟早,那些野生种群的研究可以给我们一些关于我们自己的社会的(和非社会)生殖系统演变的深刻见解."她说.