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Baby Coral Home In by Sound

How do baby coral find a new home in the open ocean? They listen—very closely—for reef sounds.

茫茫大海，小小的珊瑚虫是怎样找到新的归宿的呢？用听的，用心听礁石之声。

Scientists at the University of Bristol in England had already discovered in the last few years that baby fish who live among coral use sound to find the reefs. So they decided to check out the coral larvae themselves. These are tiny creatures, the size of a flea.

英国布里斯托大学的科学家们早在几年前就发现和珊瑚虫一起生活的小鱼是通过声音找到礁石的。于是，科学家们决定研究一下这些如跳蚤一般大小的珊瑚虫又是怎样找到礁石的。

The researchers created so-called choice chambers. When the chambers were silent, the larvae floated about, equally distributed. But when the scientists played sounds of reefs, featuring the murmurs of fish and crustaceans, the larvae swarmed toward the speakers.

研究人员发明了一种选择箱。箱内安静时，珊瑚幼虫随处游荡，分布均匀；不过，当科学家们播放礁石的声音，伴随着鱼类、甲壳类的低声细语时，这些幼虫就会统统涌向声源。

What’s even more interesting: fish larvae have anatomical features for detecting sound. But coral larvae have no such features. So how are they hearing? The researchers hypothesize that the sound waves are intercepted by cilia—hairlike structures—on the larvae. The work was published in the journal Public Library of Science ONE. [Mark J. A. Vermeij et al., MoxM]

不过，更有趣的是，鱼类本身就具有侦查声音的解剖学特征，而珊瑚幼虫却没有。那它们是怎么听的呢？于是，研究人员假设，珊瑚幼虫身上像头发一样的纤毛截获了声波。（详情请见《公共科学图书馆·综合》）

Here’s why this is important. Coral reefs around the world are threatened. Coral larvae could be deterred by noise from human sources. So managing noise pollution could be one more angle in the effort to save the reefs.

这样研究结果意义重大——目前珊瑚礁处境危险，人类制造的噪音很有可能会吓到珊瑚虫，因此，控制噪音也不失为拯救珊瑚礁的好办法。

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