寄居蟹将壳换成塑料壳后，数以百万计的寄居蟹正在死亡

寄居蟹将壳换成塑料壳后，数以百万计的寄居蟹正在死亡

If turtles with straws in their nostrils or seabirds with stomachs full of garbage weren't enough to rouse your concern about plastic pollution, perhaps this will: hermit crabs are now the latest victims of the endless barrage of plastic waste washing upon our shores, reports The Washington Post.

据《华盛顿邮报》报道，如果鼻孔里插着稻草的海龟或胃里塞满垃圾的海鸟还不足以引起你对塑料污染的担忧，或许这还能引起你的担忧:寄居蟹现在是塑料垃圾源源不断冲刷我们海岸的最新受害者。

Hermit crabs look pretty vulnerable outside of their shells - and plastics are no replacement. (Photo: Arnstein Rønning/Wikimedia Commons [CC license 3.0])

Hermit crabs, of course, are those adorable little beach bugs that occasionally peek out from underneath sea shells. Part of what makes them so cute is their vulnerability; hermit crabs are not born with shells of their own. Instead, they take residence in the shells of other critters — often, sea snails — after those shells have been vacated by their original inhabitants. As hermit crabs mature, they outgrow their shells and must swap them out for newer, larger ones.

寄居蟹，当然，是那些可爱的小沙滩虫子，偶尔会从海底的贝壳中探出头来。她们如此可爱的部分原因是她们的脆弱;寄居蟹不是天生就有壳的。相反，它们会在其他动物的壳里定居——通常是海螺——在这些壳被原来的居住者清空之后。当寄居蟹成熟时，它们的壳就会脱落，必须换新的、更大的壳。

But as plastic trash accumulates in our oceans and increasingly collects along our shorelines, we're now seeing a disturbing new trend in hermit crab shell-swapping behavior: they're trading in their shells for plastics, and with dire consequences.

但随着塑料垃圾在海洋中堆积，并越来越多地沿着海岸线聚集，我们现在看到了寄居蟹换壳行为中一个令人不安的新趋势:它们用自己的壳换塑料，并带来了可怕的后果。

This was just one of the findings of a shocking new study about plastic waste in the Cocos (Keeling) Islands, a remote chain of islands in the Indian Ocean. Despite their isolated location, researchers found that these islands were "literally drowning in plastic": 414 million pieces of the synthetic stuff, to be exact.

这只是一项令人震惊的关于Cocos (Keeling)群岛塑料垃圾的新研究的发现之一，Cocos (Keeling)群岛是印度洋上一个偏远的群岛链。尽管这些岛屿位置偏僻，但研究人员发现它们“完全淹没在塑料中”:准确地说，是4.14亿个塑料制品。

As they scoured through the heaps of trash, the team began noticing another morbid tendency. Scoops of dead hermit crabs kept pouring out of overturned plastic containers.

当他们在成堆的垃圾中搜寻时，队员们开始注意到另一种病态的倾向。一桶桶的死寄居蟹不断地从倾覆的塑料容器中涌出。

It was easy to figure out what had happened. Hermit crabs are instinctually drawn into small crevices and holes during their near-constant search for new homes. Unable to distinguish between artificial containers and shells, they crawled inside the plastic tombs only to become trapped, unable to climb back out of the slippery, unnatural environment.

很容易弄清楚发生了什么事。寄居蟹在不断寻找新家的过程中，会本能地被吸引到小裂缝和洞里。由于无法分辨出人造容器和贝壳，他们爬进塑料坟墓，结果却被困住了，无法爬出光滑、不自然的环境。

To make matters worse, hermit crabs emit a chemical signal when they die to alert others that their shell has become vacant. So the plastic containers only become more alluring as they entomb growing numbers of crabs.

更糟糕的是，寄居蟹在死后会发出一种化学信号，提醒别人它们的壳已经空了。因此，塑料容器只会在埋葬越来越多的螃蟹时变得更有吸引力。

"It's not quite a domino effect. It’s almost like an avalanche," explained Alex Bond, a curator of London’s Natural History Museum, which assisted in the study. "Hermit after hermit going into these bottles thinking they'll get their next home, when in reality, it's their last home."

“这不是多米诺骨牌效应。伦敦自然历史博物馆馆长亚历克斯·邦德解释说。“寄居蟹一个接一个地钻进瓶子里，想着他们会有下一个家，但实际上，这是他们最后一个家。”

In total, researchers estimate that 570,000 crabs were killed in this fashion in Cocos alone, which is composed of 27 islands. These are very small islands, however. Imagine how this might be harming hermit crabs around the world.

研究人员估计，仅在由27个岛屿组成的科科斯岛上，就有57万只螃蟹被这样杀死。然而，这些都是很小的岛屿。想象一下，这会对世界各地的寄居蟹造成怎样的伤害。

Right now it's too early to say exactly how steeply hermit crab populations might be declining, but if the relatively small sample size of this study is a clue, the numbers will be significant. "This is a perfect opportunity for those who were thinking about getting involved” in beach cleanups, said Jennifer Lavers, who headed the research team. "It's not just removing plastic from the beach because it's unsightly, but it's potentially doing a lot for hermit crab populations."

现在说寄居蟹的数量会急剧下降还为时过早，但如果这项研究中相对较小的样本量是一个线索，那么数量将会很可观。该研究小组的负责人珍妮弗·莱弗斯表示，对于那些想要参与海滩清理工作的人来说，这是一个绝佳的机会。“这不仅仅是将塑料从海滩上移除，因为它很难看，而且可能会对寄居蟹种群产生很大影响。”