植物的秘密武器（2014）

曾经的世界充满了
Once, the world seemed full.
神秘的自然奇迹
Of strange natural wonders...
狮鹫
Griffins...
龙
Dragons...
独角兽
Unicorns...
人头怪兽
Human-headed beasts...
但没有什么比食人神秘植物
But few more strange than mysterious plants.
更特别的了
That ate people.
19世纪 探险家们就对马达加斯加的
In the 19th century, explorers described.
雅特夫树做过描述
Ya-te-veo tree from Madagascar.
据他们所说 雅特夫树有着绿蟒般的触须
They said it had tentacles "like great green serpents."
以及水蟒般可怕的柔韧性
With the savage tenacity of anacondas."
当然 雅特夫树只是维多利亚时代的杜撰产物
Of course, the ya-te-veo tree was only Victorian fiction,
但和所有虚构事物一样 它也源于现实
But like all good fiction, it contained a germ of truth.
当维多利亚时代的博物学家在婆罗洲
When Victorian naturalists explored the slopes.
基纳巴卢山上考察时
Of mount Kinabalu in Borneo,
发现了一些奇异的植物
They found something just as bizarre,
它们长着巨大的瓶状体
Plants bearing huge pitchers...
其中一个还有被部分消化的
And one of these contained the partially digested body.
老鼠残骸
Of a rat.
这个发现引起了一时轰动
The discovery caused a sensation.
也激起了维多利亚时期
It fired the imagination of the greatest.
最伟大博物学家的灵感
Victorian naturalist...
他就是 查尔斯 达尔文
Charles darwin.
经过细致的实验 他发现
Through painstaking experiments, he showed.
许多植物都会设下陷阱捕杀昆虫
That many kinds of plants trapped and killed insects.
再消化它们的残骸
And then digested their bodies...
它们采用十分恐怖的方式
And they did this with methods as macabre.
简直与维多利亚小说中的描述一样
As any dreamed up in Victorian fiction.
作为肉食生物 食虫植物必须捕杀猎物
To be carnivorous, plants must catch and kill prey,
它们已经进化出了3种捕猎技能
And they've evolved 3 ways of doing this.
许多植物布满粘液就像粘蝇纸
Many work like flypaper, covered in sticky blobs.
简单地通过黏附捕捉昆虫
That simply glue insects to their leaves.
另一些植物则有着形如水瓶的叶片
Others have leaves shaped into pitchers.
瓶子里盛满了消化液
The pitchers are full of liquid,
可以引诱和消化落网昆虫
Which drowns and digests trapped insects.
其中一些进化出了新的陷阱
Some of these plants have evolved traps.
设计都相当巧妙
Of elaborate design.
第三种方法则是夹捕法
The third method... snap traps.
和已过时的捕鼠器原理一样 猛然夹住猎物
Like old-fashioned mousetraps, they snap shut on their prey.
这类植物被首次发现时引起了轰动
When first discovered, these plants caused uproar.
它们真的能诱杀昆虫吗
Do plants really catch and kill insects?
有人将样本送给了当时最杰出的植物学家
A specimen was sent to the greatest botanist of the time.
瑞典的 卡尔 林奈
Swedish botanist Carl Linnaeus thought.
他认为这种植物是亵渎神灵的
It was an abomination, blasphemy.
违背了上帝制♥造♥的世界秩序
It went against the way god had ordered the world.
林奈发明了一套通用生物分类系统
Linnaeus created the system of classifying all living things.
这套系统我们至今还在沿用
That we still use today,
然而他根本不相信
But he flatly refused to believe.
植物也会具有食肉属性
That plants could be carnivores.
一个多世纪后
More than a century later,
查尔斯 达尔文证明林奈是错的
Charles Darwin would prove him wrong.
达尔文培植了许多食虫植物
He cultivated lots of carnivorous plants.
以便开展详细实验
For his detailed experiments...
但他主要研究一种很小的植物
But he worked mostly on a little plant.
叫做毛毡苔 也叫茅膏菜
Called sundew, or drosera.
达尔文最出名的事迹是解释了
Darwin is most famous for explaining.
新物种是如何起源的
How new species originate but was so fascinated.
但对于这些奇异的植物 他说
By these extraordinary plants that the said,
和世界的物种起源相比
"I care more about drosera.
茅膏菜更吸引我
Than the origin of all the species in the world."
毛毡苔就是一种用粘液捕蝇的植物
The sundew is one of the sticky flypaper traps.
因其具有很多小液滴而得名
It gets its name from the tiny droplets.
液滴非常粘稠
Of sticky liquid, a kind of mucus.
分布在茎叶尾端
On the end of stalks on its leaves.
昆虫会被这种粘液黏住
Insects get stuck in this glue,
但在那时 大多数人认为
But at the time, most people thought.
这只是意外而已
This was just an accident.
达尔文却证明了粘液比想象中危险
Darwin showed it was far more sinister than this.
骇人的实验结果让他吃惊
His results both astounded and frightened him.
他将不同的物质放在叶片上
He put different substances on the leaves...
牛奶
Milk...
肉
Meat...
纸
Paper...
石头
Stone...
甚至尿液
Even urine...
然后记录下植物的反应
And recorded the plant's reactions.
牛奶使植物折叠包埋起来
Milk caused the tentacles to fold over.
肉和尿液也一样
So did meat and urine...
但它对石头和纸张却没有反应
But the plant didn't react to stone or paper.
达尔文发现任何含氮的物质都能
Darwin showed that any substance containing nitrogen.
引起植物的反应
Triggered a reaction.
他也发现植物是通过叶子来
He also found that the plant absorbed these nutrients.
吸收养分
Through its leaves.
这种行为像动物一样
It was a real carnivore like an animal...
但为什么这些植物会进化成肉食呢
But why have some plants turned carnivorous?
因为它们大多数都生长在
Most of them live in places like this...
泥塘 湿地或沼泽
Bogs, swamps, or marshes.
这些土壤养分贫瘠 如缺乏氮养
With soils poor in nutrients like nitrogen,
然而这里氮还是挺多的
Yet there's plenty of nitrogen here.
这只小虫正用六条腿爬行
It's just walking around on 6 legs.
这株茅膏菜要做的就是捕杀它
All a plant has to do is catch and kill bugs,
虫子含有大量养分
And it has plenty of fertilizer.
正如达尔文的发现 茅膏菜的叶子有了反应
Just as Darwin saw, the sundew leaf reacts.
虫子已经被黏住了
When an insect gets stuck.
大约半小时 虫子附近的触须开始弯曲
Over half an hour or so, the closest tentacles curl.
将虫整个包住
Towards the struggling insect,
把它粘得更牢
Gluing it more firmly.
然后整张叶片会把虫子卷起来
Then the leaf folds right over the victim.
把猎物抓到叶片的腺体上
This holds the prey against the glands on the leaf.
腺体会分泌可以消化虫子的化学物质
That release chemicals to dissolve and digest the insect.
看到这种现象 达尔文写道
On seeing this, Darwin wrote,
天啊 我有时觉得茅膏菜简直就是
"by Jove! I sometimes think drosera is.
披着植物表皮的动物
A disguised animal."
一定程度上来说他是对的
And in a way, he was right.
在佛罗里达的沼泽地中
In the swamps of Florida, sundews compete.
茅膏菜和动物争抢猎物
With other predators, with animals, for prey.
有些地方 粉色的茅膏菜覆盖地面
In places, the ground is carpeted by pink sundews.
大多数时候这些茅膏菜并不缺猎物
For most of the time, there's no shortage of prey.
它们有充足的食物
The sundews have plenty to eat...
但这些植物们也面临着竞争
But the plants have competition.
这是一只狼蛛
A wolf spider.
它在森林地面
The spider builds a network of threads.
织好了网
Over the forest floor.
任何东西在网上走动便会引起震动
Anything walking on the web sends vibrations back.
被藏在网心小洞的蜘蛛察觉
To the spider, hiding in a burrow at its center.
攻击快如闪电
The attack is lightning fast.
食物稀缺的时候 蜘蛛随机应变
When food gets scarce, the spiders respond.
将网织得更大以捕获更多的昆虫
By building bigger webs, which catch more insects.
这就抢了茅膏菜的饭碗
And deprive the sundews of food.
植物们也面临来自其它生物的挑战
And the plants face competition from other creatures.
茅膏菜捕获和消化猎物都需要时间
It takes time for a sundew to kill and digest its prey,
然而挣扎的猎物引起了一只
And a struggling insect attracts attention.
橡木蟾蜍的注意
An oak toad.
它们在潮湿的林间很常见
They're common in these wet forests.
经常从茅膏菜那儿盗取猎物
And often steal prey from sundews.
茅膏菜的黏腻陷阱形态百变
The sticky traps of sundews take many forms.
从平地生长
From flat carpets.
到2-3米高
To plants that grow 2 or 3 meters high.
黏腻陷阱效果显著 屡试不爽
The sticky traps work so well.