Do you dislike restaurants where noise ___1___ dinner? Seems that fish don't like a din with dinner either. Because loud sounds, for example from whizzing speedboats, distract them, and apparently ___2___ their predatory skills. So suggests a study in the journal Public Library of Science ONE. [Julia Purser and Andy Radford, "Acoustic noise induces attention shifts and reduces foraging performance in three-spined sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus)"]
Researchers took 12 fish tanks, and killed the gurgling filter sound to ___3___ the quiet of a calm lake. Then they immersed a speaker in each tank. And watched three-spined stickleback fish hunt water fleas, to the accompaniment of either white noise calibrated to match the noise level of speedboats or a silent track as a control.
Fish in each trial ultimately ___4___ the same numbers of prey. But the sticklebacks in noisy tanks spent more time attacking what's not for dinner, like bits of algae. And they often captured water fleas only to spit them out again.
The researchers say the buzz of boats may ___5___ from the hunt—causing fish to waste more time and energy chasing prey. Such inefficiency could contribute to declines in their numbers. And unlike us, fish can't ask the restaurant manager to turn the volume down as they dine.
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
drowns out impair mimic gobbled up divert attention
在吵吵闹闹的餐厅里用餐你愿意么？鱼儿们貌似不太愿意被打扰。快艇疾驰而过的噪音就很让它们心烦，不仅如此，它们的捕食能力也大受影响。该研究发现刊登在《公共科学图书馆•综合》杂志上。 研究人员找来12个鱼缸，然后把各个鱼缸里面的过滤器全部“静音”，这样一来整个鱼缸就跟平静的湖水一样安静了，他们又给每个鱼缸装了一个扬声器。接下来就是一边播放用白噪音模拟出来的快艇噪音，一边观察鱼缸里的三刺鱼怎样捕食水蚤了；对照组在静音模式下进行。 实验组和对照组中的三刺鱼最终捕食了相同数量的水蚤，区别在于，实验组中的三刺鱼在藻类等非捕食目标上费了不少功夫，不仅如此，它们还常常把捕获的水蚤吐出来╮(╯▽╰)╭ 研究人员称船发出的噪声能分散鱼儿们的注意力——使得它们耗费更多的时间、体力捕食。久而久之，鱼类数量就会减少。更杯具的是，鱼类也不能像我们一样，在用餐的时候让老板把音量调小一点╮(╯▽╰)╭