科学美国人60秒:线虫借鼻涕虫寻找食物来源-托福听力下载

　　科学美国人60秒中文翻译：

　　Why did the tiny nematode worm cross the road? 为什么小线虫会横穿马路?

　　Well, for all the usual reasons. 恩，只是出于一些平常无奇的原因。

　　But a more interesting question is “how did it make the crossing?” 但更有趣的问题则是小线虫是怎样横穿马路的?

　　Turns out, it may have hitched a ride—inside a slug, or other invertebrate. 原来它可能是搭便车—即通过搭乘鼻涕虫或其他无脊椎动物内脏的便车。

　　That's according to a study in the journal BMC Ecology. 《BMC生物学》杂志发表的一项研究得出了这样的结论。

　　Nematodes are about a millimeter long. 线虫身长约1毫米。

　　They're often found on decomposing fruits or rotting plants, where they feast on the resident bacteria. 你可以在已经腐烂的植物或水果上发现正享受着细菌盛宴的它们。

　　But when that food source is exhausted, how do these diminutive diners make their way to their next meal, which could be in a mulch pile a major trek of several yards away? 但是当食物吃光，这些小型食客们是如何长途跋涉抵达下一处餐点呢?

　　To find out, researchers hit the compost heap, and they collected some 600 slugs and 400 centipedes, spiders, beetles, flies and locusts. 为了一探究竟，研究人员扒开了肥料堆，收集到大约600只鼻涕虫，400只蜈蚣、蜘蛛、甲虫、苍蝇及蝗虫。

　　And they found that the innards of slugs, centipedes and woodlice are littered with live worms that the larger creepy crawlies accidentally ingested as they snacked. 而后他们发现鼻涕虫、蜈蚣及土鳖虫的内脏中满是活的小线虫，而它们是这些较大的爬行动物在进食时偶然吞下去的。

　　But what becomes of these itinerant intestinal interlopers? 但是这些肠道入侵者为何会安然无事呢?

　　To solve that mystery, the researchers exposed 79 slugs to more than a million nematodes that had been tagged with a fluorescent marker. 为了揭开这个谜团，研究人员们将79只鼻涕虫放在用荧光标记过的100万多只线虫环境中。

　　And they saw that the worms not only survive a southbound trip through a slug's guts, they emerge none the worse for where-they've-been when their ride takes a bathroom break. 而后他们发现线虫不仅在鼻涕虫内脏的旅行中存活，而且在被排泄出后并没有对宿主造成任何不良反应。

　　Sure, a chugging slug isn't exactly high-speed rail. 当然慢慢爬行的鼻涕虫并不是一辆特快列车。

　　But its bacteria-filled belly means that, for the nematode passengers, the dining car is always open. 但对于旅客线虫而言，那充满细菌的肚子代表着这辆餐车总是对它们敞开大门。

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