Trees talking to trees 树与树之间的对话

学习要点

有关 “nature 自然” 的词汇

边看边答

Carbon is a greenhouse gas. What sucks it up?

文字稿

Walk into a wood and you enter a peaceful, familiar world. But what if you look down? Beneath every forest and wood, there is a kind of mysterious underground social network.

走进一片树林，你就进入了一个宁静、熟悉的世界。但要是往下看呢？在每一片森林和树林的下面，都有一种神秘的地下 “社交网络”。

Let’s peel back the earth to take a look. There are the tree roots and then mingling among them, along with bacteria, are thousands of superfine threads of fungi, known as hyphae.

让我们剥开土地来看一看。有树根，混在其中，连同细菌，还有成千上万超细的真菌，称为菌丝。

And research has shown that they are all interconnected. They can help each other by sharing nutrients. And they can even warn of approaching threats. And scientists have described this as if the trees are talking to one another.

研究表明，它们都是相互关联的。他们可以互相帮助，分享营养物。它们甚至可以相互提醒即将到来的威胁。科学家们将其描述为树木之间的对话。

Now Dr Thomas Crowther and his team have mapped this subterranean social network of fungi on an epic global scale. He likens it to producing an MRI scan of the world's forests.

现在，托马斯·克劳瑟博士和他的团队绘制了这个地下真菌 “社交网络”，并且是在全球范围内完成的。他将其比作对全球森林进行的一个核磁共振扫描。

There are two main types of fungal network. They both suck up the greenhouse gas, carbon, a key factor in climate change. Systems in woods like here in the UK absorb more than ones in tropical climates. But they’re more vulnerable to rising temperatures.

真菌网络主要有两种类型。它们都吸收了温室气体 — 碳，这是影响气候变化的一个关键因素。像英国这样的森林系统要比热带气候中的吸收更多碳。但它们更容易受到气温上升的影响。

There is an effective way to help fight climate change and that's by planting trees. The new map of the wood-wide web can now be used to guide the planters. Know the right network to plug the tree into and it will flourish.

有一个有效的方法来帮助对抗气候变化，那就是植树。新的木网地图现在可以用来指导种植者。只要知道正确的 “网络”，把树插进去，它就会茁壮成长。

词汇

fungi 真菌

nutrients 养分，营养物

subterranean 地下的

vulnerable 脆弱的，易受影响的

flourish 茁壮成长

问题答案

It’s the fungal networks that suck up carbon, which is a greenhouse gas and a key factor in climate change.