作者：Jim Daley? 翻譯：小婧

BIOLOGY

Vicious Woodpecker Battles Draw an Avian Audience

研究橡果啄木鳥權(quán)力斗爭的生物學(xué)家并不是唯一的觀察者吻育，而（橡果啄木鳥的）競爭對手啄木鳥團(tuán)體也是觀察者

Biologists who study acorn woodpeckers’ power struggles are not the only ones watching—so are rival woodpecker groups

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Acorn woodpeckers storing acorns in a tree. Credit:?William LeamanAlamy

美國西部的橡樹森林被分割成不同的區(qū)域趾唱，這些區(qū)域經(jīng)常被成群的橡樹啄木鳥（acorn woodpeckers）激烈爭奪召嘶。在每塊區(qū)域里鹤耍，一代代的鳥兒都把橡樹轉(zhuǎn)變成儲存成千上萬橡子的谷倉。它們在有繁殖和無繁殖的成員中筑巢苟穆，共同合作撫養(yǎng)雛鳥抄课。當(dāng)一對正處繁殖時期的橡樹鳥中的一員死亡時，與之競爭的非繁殖橡樹鳥的隊伍會從周圍的領(lǐng)地中沖進(jìn)來雳旅，為填滿這個鳥巢爭奪機(jī)會跟磨。（應(yīng)該就是讓那孤寡的鳥重新交配從而繼續(xù)繁殖后代）(?_?)這種持續(xù)數(shù)天，涉及到多個聯(lián)盟間的戰(zhàn)士自相殘殺的斗爭可能是致命的攒盈〉志校科學(xué)家們研究這種戰(zhàn)斗已經(jīng)超過50年了，但直到最近他們才發(fā)現(xiàn)其他啄木鳥也在敏銳地觀察著這些戰(zhàn)斗沦童。

The Americas’ western oak woodlands are fragmented into territories that are often fiercely contested—by groups of?acorn woodpeckers. In each location, generations of the birds have transformed the oaks into granaries that store thousands of acorns. They nest in groups of breeding and nonbreeding members, which cooperatively raise chicks; when one member of a?breeding pair in a granary-rich area dies, rival teams of nonbreeding birds sweep in from surrounding territories to fight for a chance to fill it. These internecine struggles can be deadly, involve multiple coalitions of warriors and last for days. Scientists have studied the skirmishes for more than 50 years—but they only recently discovered other woodpeckers were keenly observing the battles, too.

史密森尼國家自然歷史博物館（Smithsonian National Museum）的鳥類生物學(xué)家Sahas Barve是最近跟蹤這一行為的一項研究的主要作者仑濒，其研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在《當(dāng)代生物學(xué)》?Current Biology上。他和他的同事們在幾十只鳥身上安裝了超輕型太陽能無線電跟蹤器偷遗，監(jiān)測它們但位置及行蹤墩瞳，從而發(fā)現(xiàn)了鳥兒們但“旁觀者現(xiàn)象”。Barve說道：“鳥群中的位置權(quán)力爭奪是如此的混亂以至于你從視覺上無法真正跟蹤每一只鳥的行動氏豌『碜茫”

Sahas Barve, an avian biologist at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, was the lead author of a recent study that tracked this behavior and was?published inCurrent Biology.?He and his colleagues discovered the spectator phenomenon by fitting dozens of birds with ultralight solar-powered radio trackers and monitoring their positions. “Power struggles are so chaotic that you can’t really [visually] track the movements of any one animal,” Barve says.

橡樹啄木鳥在打斗

生物學(xué)家已經(jīng)看到：有重新繁殖機(jī)會的消息會以令人詫異的速度傳播開乃至貫穿森林。沒有參與這項研究的普林斯頓大學(xué)進(jìn)化生物學(xué)家Christina Riehl說：“因為動物沒有語言泵喘，我們通常會認(rèn)為他們（相較于人類而言）更難傳遞信息泪电。它們不會信息貼在Facebook上，也不會在大街上談?wù)撍推獭相速！毖芯咳藛T至今還不明白周圍地帶的啄木鳥是如何發(fā)現(xiàn)這些可以在幾分鐘內(nèi)引發(fā)爭斗的“缺口”的。

Biologists have seen news of a breeding opportunity travel through the woods with astonishing speed. “Because animals don’t have language, we often assume it’s harder for them to transmit information,” says Christina Riehl, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University, who was not involved in the study. “They’re not posting about it on Facebook or talking about it in the streets.” Researchers do not yet understand how woodpeckers in surrounding territories find out about these openings, which can trigger battles within minutes.

令研究人員驚訝的是鲜锚，這些“戰(zhàn)斗”不僅吸引了戰(zhàn)士（參與打斗）突诬，還吸引了顯然只是為了觀看（“吃瓜”）的鳥類——有時這些鳥是從幾公里外飛過來的且一次觀看的時間長達(dá)一個小時。這些“旁觀者”讓自己的谷倉處在毫無任何戒備的狀態(tài)芜繁，這表明他們可以從競爭對手的聯(lián)盟中獲得情報旺隙，其價值超過自己收集情報所冒的風(fēng)險。Riehl說：“它能幫助你判斷在特定情況下該怎么做骏令∈呓荩”

The researchers were surprised that the combat attracted not only fighters but also birds that apparently came just to watch—sometimes from kilometers away—for up to an hour at a time. These spectators left their own granaries undefended, which suggests that the value of the intelligence they can gain about rival coalitions outweighs the risks of gathering it. “It helps you judge what you should do in a given situation,” Riehl says.

橡樹啄木鳥中的“吃瓜群眾”

Barve說：“觀察其他群體中的個體之間的關(guān)系(生物學(xué)家稱之為“三合一意識”)在鳥類中很少見±拼”新的觀察研究表明周拐，啄木鳥對社會動態(tài)有很高的理解。他補(bǔ)充道：“這凸顯出對于動物如何感知和駕馭復(fù)雜的社會系統(tǒng)摘昌，我們還知之甚少速妖。”

Monitoring the relationships between individuals in other groups (a trait biologists call triadic awareness) has rarely been seen among birds, according to?Barve.?The new observations show that the woodpeckers “have a very high-level understanding of social dynamics in their population,” he says.?“It highlights how much we don’t know about how animals perceive and navigate a complicated social system.”

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原文出處：https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/vicious-woodpecker-battles-draw-an-avian-audience/