So this might because they want to move toward windier areas that could be optimal, or they might want to move away from windy areas if they’re too strong, and they want to try and avoid storms.
这可能是因为漂泊信天翁(wandering albatross)想朝着最佳的多风区移动。但如果风太大,它们可能会想离开多风区,试图避免遇上风暴。
Directly testing this apex predator’s hearing is not an option.
直接测试这种顶端捕食者的听力是行不通的。
So Natasha and her colleagues arrived at a creative experimental solution: Get a large enough sample of wandering albatross flight paths.
娜塔莎和她的同事们想出了一个创造性的实验方案:收集足够多的漂泊信天翁的飞行路线样本。
Then, using wind and infrasound data, create a sound map of the total flight area—a map of microbaroms across space and time.
随后,利用风和次声数据,创建整个飞行区域的声音地图,创建一个跨越空间和时间的微气压地图。
Send out another set of albatrosses equipped with sensors to field check the sound map.
接着,派出另一组配备有传感器的信天翁对这个声音地图进行实地检查。
Finally, overlay the birds’ flight paths on the sound map.
最后,将信天翁的飞行路线叠加在声音地图上。
So essentially what we can get is: if you put an albatross at point X in space and on this day in time, what infrasound would it be likely to hear and experience?
我们大致能得到的是:如果你把一只信天翁放在空间的X点上,也就是这一天的某个时间,可能会听到、体验到什么样的次声呢?
We didn’t have an expectation at the beginning that they would move toward louder or quieter areas.
我们一开始并没有料到它们会朝着声音更大或更小的区域移动。
What the team found is that wandering albatrosses aren’t exactly wandering.
研究团队发现,漂泊信天翁并不是真正在漂泊。
Instead they seem to use microbaroms to head toward ideal wind conditions.
相反,它们似乎利用微气压朝着更理想的风况飞行。
Looking at the soundscape and how the birds move, you know, almost following this wave of sound, I found that beautiful.
观察这些声景,看着信天翁是如何跟随声波移动的,我觉得很美。
My name is Francesco Ventura, and I’m a postdoc at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
我的名字是弗朗西斯科·文图拉,我是伍兹霍尔海洋研究所的博士后。
He wasn’t involved in the study either.
他也没有参与这项研究。
It’s another world–that’s the thing.
这是另一个世界——这就是关键所在。
It’s something that we cannot fully understand, I think, because we are humans and we just cannot even imagine how that would work for us.
我认为这是我们无法完全理解的事情, 因为我们是人类,我们甚至无法想象声波对我们有什么用。
But it seems to be working fine for them because they have been doing it for a long time.
但声波似乎对信天翁来说十分有用,因为长久以来它们一直如此飞行。
They seem to be reading what’s going on and kind of orienting toward that. You know that is something that is…it’s SciFi.
它们似乎在读取当前环境状况,并朝着这个方向前进。这是科幻小说。
We know that there is something about infrasound that they want to move toward, that they like, that is beneficial to them in some way.
我们知道它们想要向次声波靠近,它们喜欢次声波,次声波在某种程度上对它们是有益的。
It was kind of a badly needed paper at this point because it sheds some new light into a fundamental question that is at the core of a lot of marine megafauna research in general but also at the core of seabird research, which is: “How do they manage to find food in such a vast area?”
此时此刻亟待整理出一篇论文,因为这为一个基本问题提供了一些新的思路,这个问题是许多海洋巨型动物研究的核心,从微观上讲,也是海鸟研究的核心。这个问题是:“它们如何在如此广阔的区域觅食的?”