一團太平洋海水是如何殺死100萬只海鳥的

一團太平洋海水是如何殺死100萬只海鳥的

Scientists have finally solved the mystery of what suddenly killed tens of thousands of birds a few years ago: It was “The Blob.”

科學家們終于解開了幾年前導致數(shù)萬只鳥類突然死亡的神秘原因:那就是“一團東西”。

Researchers were baffled when as many as 1 million common murres — an abundant breed of North Pacific seabird — died at sea between summer 2015 and spring 2016, with 62,000 of their starved bodies washing up on California and Alaska beaches.

2015年夏季至2016年春季期間，多達100萬只普通海鴉(一種豐富的北太平洋海鳥品種)在海上死亡，其中6.2萬具饑餓的尸體被沖到加利福尼亞和阿拉斯加的海灘上，這讓研究人員感到困惑。

Now, new research published Wednesday in the journal Plos One explains why.

周三發(fā)表在《公共科學圖書館·綜合》(Plos One)雜志上的一項新研究解釋了其中的原因。

The mass die-off coincided “with the most powerful marine heatwave on record,” the study says, creating “an enormous volume of ocean water (the ‘Blob’) from California to Alaska with temperatures” significantly higher than average. The hot water killed off the plankton species the birds eat, reducing their food supply and causing them to starve.

該研究稱，大規(guī)模死亡與“有記錄以來最強烈的海洋熱浪”同時發(fā)生，造成了“從加利福尼亞到阿拉斯加的大量海水(“一團”)，溫度明顯高于平均水平。熱水殺死了這些鳥吃的浮游生物，減少了它們的食物供應(yīng)，導致它們餓死。

Sea lions, puffins and whales were also negatively impacted — but the murres were hit hardest. Although seabirds are known to have periodic die-offs, this one was far larger than the typical event.

海獅、海雀和鯨魚也受到了負面影響，但海獅受到的影響最大。雖然大家都知道海鳥會有周期性的死亡，但這一次的死亡人數(shù)遠遠超過了通常的死亡數(shù)目。

More than 4,600 of the birds’ carcasses washed up on one beach alone during the Blob’s reign. It is unknown how long the bird population will need to recover from the deaths.

在恐怖海水統(tǒng)治期間，僅在一個海灘上就沖上了4600多只鳥的尸體。目前還不清楚鳥類數(shù)量需要多長時間才能從死亡中恢復。

“The magnitude and scale of this failure has no precedent,” said John Piatt, lead study author and a research biologist at the US Geological Survey’s Alaska Science Center, in a press release. “It was astonishing and alarming, and a red-flag warning about the tremendous impact sustained ocean warming can have on the marine ecosystem.”

這項研究的主要作者、美國地質(zhì)調(diào)查局阿拉斯加科學中心的研究生物學家約翰·皮亞特在一份新聞稿中說:“這次失敗的數(shù)量和規(guī)模是史無前例的。”“令人震驚和擔憂的，是關(guān)于持續(xù)的海洋變暖可能對海洋生態(tài)系統(tǒng)產(chǎn)生巨大影響的紅旗警告。”

Researchers began suspecting that warmer ocean temperatures were the cause for the murres’ deaths soon after they occurred, but have only now confirmed it. “If tens of thousands of them are dying, it’s because there’s no fish out there, anywhere, over a very large area,” Piatt announced in 2017, saying unusually warm water temperatures were likely to blame.

研究人員開始懷疑海洋溫度升高是穆爾夫婦死亡的原因，但直到現(xiàn)在才得到證實。“如果數(shù)以萬計的魚類正在死亡，那是因為在非常大的區(qū)域內(nèi)，任何地方都沒有魚，”皮亞特在2017年宣布，并表示異常溫暖的海水溫度可能是罪魁禍首。