海鸟预测台风从而帮助迁徙
Seabirds Anticipate Typhoons to Help Migrations
Terns seem to pass through just after powerful typhoons
ByJoshua Rapp Learnon
October 1, 2020
迁徙的燕鸥可能会本着其敏锐的感觉从而在台风临近时改变它们的飞行计划以躲过暴风雨的冲击，而且还可以在台风过后的觅食机会中受益。
Migrating terns may alter their flight plans based on a keen sense of approaching typhoons, escaping the brunt of the storms but still benefiting from feeding opportunities in their wakes.
山科鸟类研究所（Yamashina Institute for Ornithology）的研究人员通过追踪设备对来自日本冲绳县的6只黑枕燕鸥的行踪数据进行了研究，从而了解多年来这些鸟类的迁徙情况。燕鸥飞越菲律宾海的部分 "台风高速路"，前往婆罗洲岛和苏拉威西岛，并改变了它们的出发时间--通常来说是等到一个大台风即将穿过它们预计好的路径时才离开。
Researchers at the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology examined data recorded by tracking devices on six black-naped terns from Okinawa, Japan, to learn more about the birds' migrations over multiple years. The terns flew across part of the Philippine Sea's “typhoon highway” to get to the islands of Borneo and Sulawesi and varied their departure times—often apparently waiting to leave until a large typhoon was about to cross their projected path.
北极燕鸥
日本国家极地研究所博士后研究员、这项新研究的主要作者Jean-Baptiste Thiebot说：“它们似乎可以预测它。”该研究于6月发表在《海洋生物学》上。该研究中几乎没有关于燕鸥如何做到这一点的线索，但在其他方面表明，一些迁徙的鸟类可以检测到次声波天气信号以及可以观察到云层中的千变万化。
“They seem to be able to predict it,” says Jean-Baptiste Thiebot, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Institute of Polar Research in Japan and lead author of the new study, which waspublished in JuneinMarine Biology. The study offers few clues about how terns might do this, but other research suggests some migrating birds detect infrasonic weather signals or observe changing clouds.
Thiebot研究的燕鸥通常会避开台风。但是台风所带来的狂风暴雨可以将食物“搅动”到海洋表面，这就会直接给饥肠辘辘的迁徙鸟儿们提供食物帮助。Thiebot说，"实际上，每年迁徙时，它们可能会利用台风来知道何时离开。"在2017年这个异常平静的季节，并没有强烈的台风信号，鸟儿们的旅程开始得较晚，飞行时也没有中途停留。Thiebot希望这一现象可以在更大规模的研究中被证实。他还担心台风频率的增加会影响鸟类的预测精度，有可能会让它们受困于危险的天气中而无法脱身。
The terns Thiebot studied typically avoided the typhoons themselves. But these storms can churn food to the ocean surface, so their immediate aftermath may help the hungry travelers. “They might actually use the typhoon to know when to leave” for their migrations each year, Thiebot says. In the unusually quiet 2017 season, without a strong typhoon cue, the birds started their journeys later and flew without pit stops. Thiebot would like to see this pattern confirmed in a larger study. He also worries that increasing typhoon frequency could affect birds' prediction accuracy, potentially getting them caught in dangerous weather.
美国地质调查局(U.S. Geological Survey)的已退休野生动物生物学家罗伯特
·吉尔(Robert Gill)没有参与这项研究。他说：“尽管这项研究的样本容量很小，但它却增添了科学家们对燕鸥迁徙的整体认知。”他还曾研究过滨鸟（可以简单理解为就是栖息在海岸边的鸟儿）， 它们的迁徙时间有部分是基于即将到来的风暴的，但很少有研究会深入探讨这种行为。“它们比我们所拥有的最好的天气预报员预测得还要好，”吉尔说，“但它们已经通过哪怕没有数百万年也有数万年的岁月来磨练这项技能。”
Robert Gill, an emeritus research wildlife biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, who was not involved in the work, says that although the study's sample size is small, it adds to scientists' overall understanding of migration.He has studied shorebirds that time their migrations based partly on incoming storms, but little research has delved into this behavior. “They are able to predict better than the best weather forecasters we have,” Gill says, “but they've also had tens of thousands, if not millions, of years to hone that skill.”
原文：https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/seabirds-anticipate-typhoons-to-help-migrations/
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