演讲题目：Conserving the canopy

演讲简介：

在雨林顶端的一个特殊的生态系统，植物，岛类，猴子在这个生态系统中生息繁衍。讲者正在探索这些林冠世界，并且与世界分享了以下发现，通过舞蹈，艺术和稳固的合作。



中英文字幕

Trees are wonderful arenas for discovery because of their tall stature, their complex structure, the biodiversity they foster and their quiet beauty.

树木是一片有趣的值得探索的领域，因为树木挺拔，结构也复杂，它们培育了生物多样性，它们宁静又美丽。

I used to climb trees for fun all the time and now, as a grown-up, I have made my profession understanding trees and forests,

我过去常常以爬树为乐，现在长大了，我从事的专业是去了解树木和树林，

through the medium of science.

通过科学的方法。

The most mysterious part of forests is the upper tree canopy.

树林最神秘的地方是树的树冠部分。

And Dr. Terry Erwin, in 1983, called the canopy, "the last biotic frontier." I'd like to take you all on a journey up to the forest canopy,

在1983年，特里.欧文称林冠为“最后的生物防线”，我会带你们进入到森林的林冠，

and share with you what canopy researchers are asking and also how they're communicating with other people outside of science.

与你们分享林冠研究人员在探索的东西，以及他们是如何与这个领域外的人交流的。

Let's start our journey on the forest floor of one of my study sites in Costa Rica.

让我们从树林底层开始，这是我在哥斯达黎加的一个研究基地。

Because of the overhanging leaves and branches, you'll notice that the understory is very dark, it's very still.

由于树叶和树枝四处展开，你会发现下层植被很暗，也很安静。

And what I'd like to do is take you up to the canopy, not by putting all of you into ropes and harnesses,

我想要做的是带你们到林冠部分，不用绳索和吊带把你们带上去，

but rather showing you a very short clip from a National Geographic film called "Heroes of the High Frontier." This was filmed in Monteverde, Costa Rica

而是给你们看一个短片，来自国家地理频道的短片叫：雨林林冠的探险家，这是在哥斯达黎加的蒙特威尔特（一个森林保护区）拍摄的，

and I think it gives us the best impression of what it's like to climb a giant strangler fig.

我觉得这可以让我们更好的经历爬上巨大勒颈无花果树（一种热带树种）的感觉。

So what you'll see up there is that it's really like the atmosphere of an open field,

你可以看到的是林的上端的确很像一块开阔的场地，

and there are tremendous numbers of plants and animals that have adapted to make their way and their life in the canopy.

有很多植物和动物适应了林冠的生活，并一直生活在那里。

Common groups, like the sloth here, have clear adaptations for forest canopies, hanging on with their very strong claws.

有相同特征的动物，如树獭，可以很容易适应林冠的生活，用强有力的爪子抓住树不放。

But I'd like to describe to you a more subtle kind of diversity and tell you about the ants.

但我想告诉你们一种不易察觉的生物多样性，那就是蚂蚁。

There are 10,000 species of ants that taxonomists -- people who describe and name animals -- have named.

世上有1万种蚂蚁，被描述动物并给动物取名的分类学者取名。

4,000 of those ants live exclusively in the forest canopy.

其中4千种蚂蚁只生活在林冠中。

One of the reasons I tell you about ants is because of my husband, who is in fact an ant taxonomist and when we got married,

我拿蚂蚁举例的其中一个原因是我的丈夫其实是一位蚂蚁分类学者，我们结婚后，

he promised to name an ant after me, which he did -- Procryptocerus nalini, a canopy ant.

他许诺我用我的名字给一种蚂蚁取名，Procyptocerus nalini, 一种林冠蚂蚁。

We've had two children, August Andrew and Erika and actually, he named ants after them.

我们有两个孩子，奥格斯特安德鲁和埃丽卡，其实他也用他们的名字给蚂蚁取了名。

So we may be the only family that has an ant named after each one of us.

我们可能是唯一一个用自己的名字给蚂蚁取名的家庭。

But my passion -- in addition to Jack and my children -- are the plants, the so-called epiphytes, those plants that grow up on trees.

但我关注的，除了杰克和我的孩子，是这些植物，所谓的附生植物，这些植物长在树上。

They don't have roots that go into trunks nor to the forest floor.

它们没有长在树枝上或丛林地表的根。

But rather, it is their leaves that are adapted to intercept the dissolved nutrients that come to them in the form of mist and fog.

但他们的叶子能够截留以薄雾形式出现的已溶解的营养物。

These plants occur in great diversity, over 28,000 species around the world.

这些植物的种类很多，世界上大约有两万八千种。

They grow in tropical forests like this one and they also grow in temperate rainforests, that we find in Washington state.

它们生长在这样的热带丛林里，它们也生长在温带雨林里，我们在华盛顿州可以发现这些。

These epiphytes are mainly dominated by the mosses.

这些附生植物大多是藓类。

One thing I want to point out is that underneath these live epiphytes, as they die and decompose, they actually construct an arboreal soil,

有一件事我要说明的是在这些活的附生植物下面，当这些植物死去并分解，它们变成了树上的土壤，

both in the temperate zone and in the tropics.

温带和热带地区都有这种现象。

And these mosses, generated by decomposing, are like peat moss in your garden.

这些由分解而产生的藓类大多数是和你们院子里的泥苔藓一样。

They have a tremendous capacity for holding on to nutrients and water.

它们有很强的能力锁住营养和水分。

One of the surprising things I discovered is that, if you pull back with me on those mats of epiphytes,

我发现一件很奇怪的事，如果我们回去看这些苔藓群，

what you'll find underneath them are connections, networks of what we call canopy roots.

在它们下面我们可以找到一些联系和网络，我们称之为林冠的根。

These are not epiphyte roots: these are roots that emerge from the trunk and branch of the host trees themselves.

这些不是附生植物的根，这些是主体树的树干和树枝的根。

And so those epiphytes are actually paying the landlord a bit of rent in exchange for being supported high above the forest floor.

所以那些附生植物其实是在支付地主（主体树）租金，以便能够生活在丛林地表高处。

I was interested, and my canopy researcher colleagues have been interested in the dynamics of the canopy plants that live in the forest.

我和我的同事都感兴趣的是林冠植物生活在丛林里的动态过程。

We've done stripping experiments where we've removed mats of epiphytes and looked at the rates of recolonization.

我们做了剥离实验，我们剥去了苔藓群，然后观察苔藓重新长出来的速度。

We had predicted that they would grow back very quickly and that they would come in encroaching from the side.

我们估计它们会长得很快，并且它们会先从边上长出来。

What we found, however, was that they took an extremely long time -- over 20 years -- to regenerate, starting from the bottom and growing up.

但我们最后发现，其实它们花了相当长的时间-20多年才长出来，从底部慢慢生长。

And even now, after 25 years, they're not up there, they have not recolonized completely.

甚至到现在，25年后它们没有长到那里，没有完全覆盖树表。

And I use this little image to say this is what happens to mosses.

我用这张小图想说的是藓类就是这样。

If it's gone, it's gone, and if you're really lucky you might get something growing back from the bottom.

如果它们消失了，它们就没了，如果你足够幸运，你可能让它们从底部重新长出来。

So, recolonization is really very slow.

所以，重新覆盖真的是非常慢。

These canopy communities are fragile.

这些林冠系统是很脆弱的。

Well, when we look out, you and I, over that canopy of the intact primary forest, what we see is this enormous carpet of carbon.

那么，当我们一起俯瞰这个保护完好的主要丛林的林冠，我们看到大量的碳化物。

One of the challenges that canopy researchers are attacking today is trying to understand the amount of carbon that is being sequestered.

如今林冠研究者面临的一个挑战是尝试了解林冠所吸收的碳化物量。

We know it's a lot, but we do not yet know the answers to how much, and by what processes, carbon is being taken out of the atmosphere,

我们知道有很多，但我们还不知道到底有多少，又是通过什么途径这些碳化物被环境中吸收，

held in its biomass, and moving on through the ecosystem.

储存在藓类上，然后到整个生态系统。

So I hope I've showed you that canopy-dwellers are not just insignificant bits of green up high in the canopy that Tarzan and Jane were interested in,

所以我想我应该像你们展示了林冠上生活的生物，并不仅仅是微不足道的的一点林冠高处的绿色，那是泰山和珍妮感兴趣的，

but rather that they foster biodiversity contribute to ecosystem nutrient cycles, and they also help to keep our global climate stable.

而且他们培育了生物多样性，帮助生态系统的营养循环，他们也有益于全球气候的稳定。

Finally, as a scientist and as a person and now, as part of the TED community, I feel that I have better tools to go out to trees,

最后，作为一位科学家，一个普通的人，现在作为TED的一员，我发现我有更好的方法去研究树，

to go out to forests, to go out to nature,

研究森林，研究自然，

to make new discoveries about nature -- and about humans' place in nature wherever we are and whomever you are.

对自然有新的发现--对人在自然中的地位有新的发现，不论我们在哪里，不论我们是谁。

Thank you very much.

非常谢谢大家！