?Bottlenose dolphins simplify and raise the pitch of their whistles to be heard above underwater shipping noise. Christopher Intagliata reports.寬吻海豚簡(jiǎn)化并提高口哨的音調(diào),以便在水下航運(yùn)噪音的影響下互相交流。Christopher Intagliata報(bào)道。 撰文\播音:克里斯托弗·因塔利亞塔(Christopher Intagliata) 翻譯:張朵兒 審校:郭曉
? The oceans are getting louder. And coastal areas are some of the noisiest, as in this underwater recording, captured 17 miles off the coast of Ocean City, Maryland. 海洋正變得越來(lái)越嘈雜。而海濱地區(qū)是最嘈雜的地方,正如在距離馬里蘭州海洋城海岸17英里處錄制的這段水下錄音一樣。<一段馬里蘭海域船只的噪聲> The noise could be a problem for marine mammals, which, like us, use sound to communicate. "Just like if we're in a noisy bar, we have to shout to each other, they might have to do that too." Helen Bailey is a marine biologist at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. 噪聲可能會(huì)給海洋哺乳動(dòng)物造成不少困擾,而海洋哺乳動(dòng)物和我們人類一樣也利用聲音交流。“就像是我們在一個(gè)嘈雜的酒吧里,我們必須互相喊叫,它們可能也必須這樣做。”?馬里蘭大學(xué)環(huán)境科學(xué)中心的海洋生物學(xué)家海倫?貝利(Helen Bailey)如是說(shuō)。 She and her colleagues recorded two months of underwater sounds, in that same area off the coast of Maryland. They used automated software to fish out 200 bottlenose dolphin whistles from the noise, and visually compared the spectrograms. Here's a normal whistle. 她和她的同事在馬里蘭州海岸外的同一地方錄制了兩個(gè)月的水下聲音。他們使用自動(dòng)化軟件從噪音中捕獲到200只寬吻海豚的哨聲,并將其可視化為頻譜圖進(jìn)行比較。這是正常的哨聲。<一段口哨聲> But what they found was that dolphins dumbed down the complexity of their whistles and raised their pitch, when they were competing with shipping noise.?Which apparently helps, but could also hurt, their ability to communicate. 但他們發(fā)現(xiàn),當(dāng)海豚在船只噪音中互相交流時(shí),它們簡(jiǎn)化了哨聲的復(fù)雜性并提高了它們的音調(diào)。<第二段哨聲>這顯然有幫助,但也可能傷害它們的溝通能力。 "By using simpler calls, yes, there is a risk they're not communicating as much information as they would if it was quieter. Also for younger dolphins they actually learn these sounds from hearing other dolphins. So they're hearing this much simpler language." “使用簡(jiǎn)化的叫聲會(huì)帶來(lái)傳遞的信息下降的風(fēng)險(xiǎn)。而對(duì)于年幼的海豚來(lái)說(shuō),它們是從其他海豚那兒學(xué)習(xí)這些聲音。所以它們聽(tīng)到的就會(huì)是這種大大簡(jiǎn)化的語(yǔ)言。” The results—and a few of those spectrograms—are in the journal Biology Letters. [Leila Fouda et al., Dolphins simplify their vocal calls in response to increased ambient noise] ?結(jié)果連同部分光譜圖發(fā)表在《生物學(xué)快報(bào)》上。 The survey site is the proposed future home of a wind farm - which could mean lots of noise as the huge towers are installed. Until then, it's the chronic roar of ships and boats that Bailey wants people to ponder. "I think people think about boats in terms of the emissions, just like with cars. And I think what we need to think about is sound is also an emission."? 調(diào)查地點(diǎn)是未來(lái)風(fēng)力發(fā)電場(chǎng)的選址,這就意味著巨型風(fēng)塔搭建好后會(huì)產(chǎn)生很多噪音。到那時(shí),這種噪音相當(dāng)于船只發(fā)出長(zhǎng)期的噪聲,貝利希望人們能仔細(xì)思考這個(gè)問(wèn)題。“我認(rèn)為人們會(huì)考慮船只的廢氣排放問(wèn)題,就像汽車尾氣問(wèn)題一樣。但是我們必須意識(shí)到,聲音也是一種排放。”