浮木惊人的美丽和好处

浮木惊人的美丽和好处

Trees are pillars of their communities, a role they can maintain even in death. An upright dead tree offers vital habitat to certain birds and bats, for example, while a fallen tree is a bonanza for life on the forest floor, including future trees.

树木是我们社会的支柱，即使死亡也能维持这个角色。例如，一棵直立的死树为某些鸟类和蝙蝠提供了重要的栖息地，而一棵倒下的树则为森林地面上的生命(包括未来的树木)提供了丰富的资源。

Yet rotting in place is not the only natural afterlife for a tree. Sometimes, instead of giving back to its birth forest, a tree will embark on an odyssey to pay it forward, carrying its ecological wealth away from the only home it has ever known.

然而，就地腐烂并不是树木唯一的自然来世。有时候，一棵树非但没有回归到它的生长期，反而会带着它的生态财富踏上征程，离开它唯一的家园，继续繁衍。

Sunrise reveals an eponymous piece of debris at Driftwood Beach on Georgia's Jekyll Island. (Photo: Jon Bilous/Shutterstock)

These traveling trees don't mean to betray their roots; they're just going with the flow. They've become driftwood, a term for any woody remnants of trees that wind up moving through rivers, lakes or oceans. This journey is often brief, merely leading to a different part of the same ecosystem, but it can also send a tree far out to sea — and maybe even across it.

这些“旅行”的树并不想背叛它们的根;他们只是随大流。它们已经变成了浮木，指的是那些在河流、湖泊或海洋中漂浮的树木的残骸。这段旅程通常很短暂，只是通往同一个生态系统的不同部分，但它也可以把一棵树送到很远的地方——甚至可能穿过海洋。

Driftwood is a common sight at beaches around the world, although many people dismiss it as unremarkable scenery or useless debris. And while some driftwood is a little short on mystique — like twigs from a nearby tree, or boards that fell off a fishing pier — it can also be a ghost from a distant forest or shipwreck, transformed by its adventures into something beautiful. Along the way, driftwood tends to return the favor by reshaping and enriching the environments it visits.

浮木是世界各地海滩上常见的景观，尽管许多人认为它只是普通的风景或无用的残骸。虽然有些浮木缺乏神秘感——比如从附近的树上取下的细枝，或者从钓鱼码头上掉下来的木板——但它也可能是来自遥远森林的鬼魂或者沉船，经过历险后变成了一些美丽的东西。在这个过程中，浮木往往会通过改变和丰富它所处的环境来回报这种恩惠。

Windows of opportunity

机会之窗

Lake Huron peers through a driftwood window at Pinery Provincial Park near Grand Bend, Ontario. (Photo: Brian Lasenby/Shutterstock)

Long before humans built boats from dead trees, the raw materials were out there exploring uncharted waters on their own. Driftwood may have even inspired our first wooden rafts and boats, as ancient people noticed its strength and buoyancy.

早在人类用死树造船之前，这些原材料就已经在那里自己探索未知的水域。古代的人们注意到了浮木的力量和浮力，也许正是浮木激发了我们建造木筏和小船的灵感。

Dead trees have always served as boats, though, just usually for smaller passengers. Driftwood not only feeds and shelters lots of tiny wildlife, but can also help them colonize otherwise unreachable habitats. And its arrival can benefit local residents, too, introducing new resources to sustain coastal wildlife and help buffer their exposed home from wind and sun.

不过，枯树一直被用作船只，通常只是供较小的乘客使用。浮木不仅可以喂养和庇护许多微小的野生动物，还可以帮助它们开拓原本无法到达的栖息地。而且它的到来也能使当地居民受益，为维持沿海野生动物带来新的资源，并帮助他们的家免受风和太阳的伤害。

Logging off

浮木

Driftwood can enrich rivers and shape their channels over time, as this natural logjam is doing for Panther Creek at Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington. (Photo: Thye-Wee Gn/Shutterstock)

The adventures of driftwood often begin in rivers, and many of them stay there. Driftwood is an important part of virtually all natural waterscapes around the world, including freshwater streams, rivers and lakes as well as oceans.

漂流木的冒险故事通常从河流开始，很多漂流木都呆在那里。浮木是世界上几乎所有天然水景的重要组成部分，包括淡水溪流、河流、湖泊和海洋。

Rivers that flow through or near forests tend to collect pieces of dead trees, sometimes resulting in accumulations of driftwood known as logjams. Over time, these clusters can help build up the banks of rivers and even shape their channels, influencing not only the way water moves through the ecosystem, but also what kind of solutes, sediments and organic matter it contains.

流经森林或森林附近的河流往往会收集死树的碎片，有时会导致被称为“木塞”的浮木的堆积。随着时间的推移，这些集群可以帮助建立河岸，甚至塑造河道，不仅影响水在生态系统中的移动方式，还影响其中所包含的溶质、沉积物和有机物的种类。

Traveling habitat

旅行的栖息地

Driftwood can serve as a 'floating reef' for various wildlife after it departs dry land. (Photo: Bryce Jackson/Shutterstock)

For driftwood that leaves terra firma to begin a new life at sea, the odds of ever returning to land are pretty slim. But being lost at sea doesn't necessarily mean their travels are a lost cause. As writer Brian Payton noted recently in Hakai Magazine, driftwood can stay afloat in the open ocean for about 17 months, where it offers rare amenities like food, shade, protection from waves and a place to lay eggs. As such, pelagic driftwood becomes a "floating reef" that can host a variety of marine wildlife.

对于离开陆地在海上开始新生活的浮木来说，返回陆地的机会非常渺茫。但在海上迷路并不一定意味着他们的旅行失败了。作家布莱恩佩顿最近在《海凯杂志》上撰文指出，浮木可以在公海上漂浮约17个月，在那里它可以提供罕见的便利，比如食物、阴凉、防浪和产卵的地方。因此，远洋浮木成为一个“浮礁”，可以容纳各种海洋野生动物。