RE5 Unit 8B · OF ANTS AND HUMANS (蚁群与人类)

Reading 8B · OF ANTS AND HUMANS (蚁群与人类)

著名社会生物学家爱德华·威尔逊剖析蚂蚁与人类社会的惊人相似性：分工协作、战争与沟通。

Paragraph A

E. O. Wilson, one of the world's foremost authorities on biodiversity

在著名生物学家爱德华·奥斯本·威尔逊博士眼中，蚂蚁是“超个体（Superorganism）”最纯粹的典范。作为享誉全球的演化生物学泰斗、两度普利策奖得主，威尔逊将毕生心血倾注于探索昆虫社会的错综奥秘。在这次广阔深入的访谈中，他回顾了自己对大自然的炽热激情，并深入阐释了人类能从脚下这群微型文明中汲取的深刻启迪。

discusses his lifelong love of the natural world,

including its smallest members.

How did you develop a passion for nature?

When I was nine years old and living in Washington, D.C.,

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I somehow got excited about the idea of expeditions to far off jungles,

威尔逊对大自然的痴迷萌发于童年时代。在华盛顿特区长大的他，曾度过无数个在城市公园探索、造访国家动物园的沉醉午后。大自然五彩斑斓的生命形态令他深深着迷。“凡是爬行的、飞行的生物，无一不让我心驰神往，”威尔逊回忆道，“实际上，每年美国去动物园参观的人数，比观看所有职业体育比赛的观众总和还要多。”

to collect the sorts of things you saw in National Geographic.

So, I decided I would do some expeditions to Rock Creek Park,

and I got bottles and everything, and I started collecting there.

I would go on my own and wander for hours.

Then I went to the National Zoo, which was paradise on Earth for me.

How could you avoid becoming a naturalist in that kind of environment?

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I worry about that. I have no data,

当被问及为何最终选择专攻蚂蚁而非其他昆虫时，威尔逊会心一笑。在研究生时期，他原本打算主攻果蝇研究。然而他很快发现，由于战后物资匮乏，用于固定微型果蝇标本的特制玻璃大头针根本买不到；相比之下，蚂蚁标本只需泡在普通的酒精小玻璃瓶中即可妥善保存。

but it appears to me that many of our young people are staying at home

or being influenced by an increasingly stimulating,

artifactual world, fake nature, sci-fi movies, videos,

being drawn into lives that are pursued in front of a computer.

That's a trend that would take young people away from a naturalist's experience.

But there are counter-influences.

More people go to zoos in the United States than attend professional sports.

Did you know that?

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Darwin loved beetles. What was it about ants for you?

“这可以说是一种美妙的机缘巧合，”他坦言，“而且蚂蚁在生态系统中的多样性与重要性远胜果蝇。当时该领域的科研处女地极为辽阔，每一次野外考察都意味着能发现数十种未知的全新物种。”在随后的数十年中，威尔逊亲手分类并命名了全球数百种新蚂蚁。

Originally, I was going to work on flies because I felt that was a wide open area to do exploration,

but I couldn't get the special insect pins to collect them.

It was 1946, just after the Second World War, and those pins were not available.

So, I turned to ants because I could collect them in bottles of alcohol.

Do some say that this isn't serious science, it's just collecting?

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you can respond quickly that you're not going to get anywhere until you do this science.

在赴多米尼加共和国的野外考察中，加勒比海丰富多元的生物多样性令威尔逊惊叹不已。许多人以为多米尼加只是一片阳光沙滩和度假胜地，殊不知其险峻内陆群山覆盖着清凉的松林，孕育着全球独一无二的特有蚁种。“我们在生物学探索的征途上，充其量才刚刚揭开序幕，”威尔逊由衷强调。

And furthermore, you're going to make all sorts of new discoveries while you're doing it.

You never know when someone is going to be looking for some kind of lead

in this growing body of information from mapping life on Earth.

For instance, someone might say,

what I need for my work is an ant that hunts underwater

and walks around submarine fashion

and then comes out and goes back to a dry nest.

Does any such thing exist?

It turns out, yes.

A submarine ant?

Paragraph F

this plant collects water in which insects fall and drown,

科学家们推算，地球上仅有大约10%的动物物种被正式分类描述。即便是蚂蚁，威尔逊也坚信大约还有半数现存种类尚待人类发现。在马来西亚，他曾偶遇生活在食虫猪笼草（Nepenthes）积水囊内部的神奇弓背蚁，它们竟能潜入水下捞取失足溺亡的昆虫。

and there are substances in the water that help digest the insects.

Nepenthes gets organic material from the insects it captures.

There is this ant that lives on Nepenthes,

and the workers walk in right down into the mouth of hell.

They just walk right in submarine-like

and pick up insects that have fallen to the bottom.

Are you doing any field trips these days?

I get together with younger ant specialists.

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and we go into the field.

在他合著的巨著《超级个体》（*The Superorganism*）中，威尔逊深入探讨了连查尔斯·达尔文都曾困惑不已的进化谜题：不育的工蚁阶层究竟是如何进化的？在一个蚁群中，数以百万计的工蚁完全放弃了繁殖后代的机会；相反，它们将终身精力全部倾注于守卫蚁巢、抚育幼虫以及服侍具有繁衍能力的蚁后。

On a recent trip to the Dominican Republic,

we went up to 2.4 kilometers above sea level.

Most people don't know the Dominican Republic as mountains.

We were all the way up in cold pine forests,

discovering new species at every mountain site.

There's no feeling that the world has been conquered now?

Oh no, that's the point.

We're just beginning exploration.

For animals, we probably know as few as 10% of the species.

Even in a fairly familiar group like ants,

we're discovering them right and left.

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I estimate that maybe half the ants in the world remain undiscovered.

达尔文当年便敏锐意识到，这种杀身成仁的利他奉献似乎与基于个体竞争适者生存的自然选择学说相抵触。威尔逊则开创性地阐明：自然选择的作用靶点不仅停留在单体生物，更直接作用于整个群体！蚁群在本质上是一个统一运作的超级有机体，其中单只蚂蚁犹如人体细胞，而不同形态的分工阶层则如同各司其职的器官。

How well did Darwin know his ants?

Darwin knew his ants very well.

He spent a lot of time watching ants,

and part of the reason was that ants exemplified

a peculiarity that he said might have proved fatal to his theory of evolution.

And that potential flaw was that worker ants

are so completely different from queen ants,

yet they are sterile.

So how would you explain that by natural selection?

If worker ants couldn't have offspring,

how were their traits developed and passed on?

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tending the queen while giving up reproduction evolved?

孤军奋战的独居昆虫在构筑、守卫和打理巢穴的同时还要四出觅食，往往面临严峻的生存危机；相比之下，群居昆虫则坐拥无可比拟的竞争优势。严密的劳动分工使一部分工蚁能心无旁骛地持续采集物资，而另一部分同伴则专职育幼或阻击外敌入侵。

Yes, and Darwin solved the problem.

What counts is the group,

and that worker ants are just part of the colony,

just an extension of the queen.

Her heredity is what matters.

If she is producing separate organisms that serve her purpose,

then altogether these colonies can prevail over solitary individuals.

That was the solution,

and actually that isn't too far from the way we see it today.

The most recent theories are spelled out in a book

that Bert Holdobler and I wrote called The Superorganism.

Why that title?

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The colony is the next level of biological organization.

时至今日，蚂蚁在地球陆地生态系统中占据着绝对的统治地位。虽然单只蚂蚁的体重通常只有几毫克，但将全球所有蚂蚁的重量汇聚起来，其总生物量竟与全人类的总体重平分秋色！在热带雨林中，蚂蚁与白蚁的生物量占据了全部陆生动物总量的近三分之一。

The colony, by group selection, has developed traits that could not be possible otherwise.

Communication, the caste system, cooperative behavior.

It's a unit of activity and of evolution.

One colony against another is what's being selected.

This happens to be close to Darwin's idea,

but in modern genetic terms.

How does this kind of social behavior get started?

It has to do with defense against enemies.

Naturalists have discovered more and more groups that have altruistic workers and soldiers,

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and even a mammal, the naked mole rat.

此外，蚂蚁还是陆地微型无脊椎动物最顶级的终极捕食者。它们翻整和通透土壤的规模甚至远超蚯蚓，协助数不胜数的植物传播种子，并高效清理腐殖有机碎屑。倘若没有蚂蚁的辛勤劳作，全球陆地生态系统必将在堆积如山的有机腐物压迫下陷入窒息与停摆。

What's consistently the case is that these animals have a resource,

usually a place to live with food that's very valuable.

If you're a solitary individual and you build a chamber like that,

somebody could chuck you out.

The idea is that these lines are going to find it advantageous

to develop sterile casts for maintaining and protecting the colony.

So, this is a story about community and home.

I've learned my lesson about jumping from ants or sponges to humans,

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Anthropologists now pretty much agree that a major factor in human origins

蚁群实现这一生态辉煌的关键利器，是它们近乎完美的化学通讯网络。它们几乎纯粹依靠嗅觉与味觉进行交流，掌握着一套由信息素分子编织的精密“词汇表”。通过触角相碰与反哺交换体液，它们能瞬间传递警报信号、食物方位以及全巢健康状况。

was having a habitation, a campsite, which allowed for certain specialization,

where some stayed and looked after the site and the young and so on,

while others ventured out to bring food back,

and the pressures from predators must have been pretty intense.

But we don't have sterile casts.

No, we have a division of labor that is very true,

and that's a fundamental difference between us and insects and these other creatures.

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And that's why we have to be very careful about drawing analogies.

蚁群还拥有令人惊叹的卫生防疫智慧。工蚁能从胸膜腺等器官分泌出强效抗菌物质为整个巢穴消杀杀菌，尽管数以万计的个体终日密集栖身于潮湿地底，却极少爆发大规模真菌或病菌瘟疫。在某些蚁种中，专属的“殡葬工蚁”会迅速将死去的同伴尸体清运至远离主巢的专用垃圾填埋区。

Because human beings are so flexible and intelligent,

we can divide labor without physical casts.

That system has worked pretty well for ants.

They dominate ecosystems.

In tropical forests from one study, ants alone make up four times the weight

of all the land vertebrates put together, amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals.

The weight of all the ants in the world is roughly the weight of all the humans.

They are the principal predators of small animals,

the principal scavengers in much of the world,

and the principal turners of the soil.

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It's interesting that ants and humans are both social,

关于蚁群的一个令人大开眼界的真相是：它们是不折不扣的“全女性社会”。所有的工蚁、兵蚁乃至蚁后全部是雌性。雄蚁仅以长翅“雄蜂”的形态短暂存在，唯一的使命就是在婚飞季节与年轻蚁后交配，并在完成交配后不久便迅速衰亡。“这是一个完全由姐妹同胞主宰并运转的微观世界，”威尔逊意味深长地感叹道。

and that both dominate their environment.

Sure enough, we're the one highly social vertebrate with altruism

and high levels of division of labor, though not sterility.

We're the one species that has reached this level, and we dominate.

We also have a tremendous effect on other species.

More than any kind of ant.

But I'm always at risk of having it said that nut wants to compare ants and humans.

Well, obviously not.

Beyond the fact that we both reached high levels of social behavior

based on altruism and division of labor,

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For example, they communicate almost entirely by taste and smell.

当被问及人类与蚂蚁的异同比较时，威尔逊着重指出了人类独有的文化创造力与符号语言天赋。人类与蚂蚁都拥有极高水准的社会协作和劳动分工；然而，蚂蚁的工蚁、兵蚁等社会阶层在出生时便由生物形态终身定格，而人类却能打破藩篱，自由选择与切换自己的社会角色与人生轨迹。

They live in a sensory world that's totally different from humans.

It's like ants are from another planet.

And ants are constantly at war.

Well, so are we.

But they are the most warlike of animals.

It makes you wonder whether war and complex societies go together.

It may turn out that highly evolved societies with this level of altruism

tend strongly to divide into groups that then fight against each other.

We humans are constantly at war and have been since prehistory.

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Just a cultural anomaly.

不仅如此，虽然邻近蚁群之间往往进行着无休无止的化学与肉搏屠戮，但人类却拥有开展外交斡旋、同理共情与理性妥协的崇高心智。威尔逊真切期冀，人类审视自然界并非为了盲目模仿其中的残酷争斗，而是为了在壮美磅礴的生物圈不可逆地陨落之前，恪尽职守地守护好地球家园那珍贵无比的生物多样性。

And all we have to do is get enlightened and drop it.

I hope that's true.

Do the ants offer any lessons?

At least not any we would care to put in practice.

Ant colonies are all female.

Males are tolerated only part of the year.

Slavery and cannibalism are commonplace.

There is one lesson we have already learned, however.

Ants keep themselves fanatically clean, so epidemics are rare.

But now ants and many other creatures are threatened with extinction.

💡 审辩式思维 (Critical Thinking: Comparing & Reflecting)

1. In what ways do you think ants are most similar to humans?

结合威尔逊访谈，你认为蚂蚁与人类在社会组织行为上最显著的相似点是什么？

思维指引 (Sample Perspective):
• 高度组织化的社会生活：群居生存、精密严密的社会分工（工蚁、兵蚁、蚁后）、通过信息素与肢体触碰复杂沟通、甚至有协同作战与栽培真菌农作（如切叶蚁）。
• 本质区别：蚂蚁社会完全由雌性构建，严格受遗传本能支配，缺少个体的自我意识与文化创造；人类具有自由意志、同理心、艺术与道德伦理。

2. What can humans learn from ants about sustainable living and collaboration?

人类能否从存活了一亿多年以上的蚁群社会中汲取生态可持续性与无私协作的启示？

思维指引 (Sample Perspective):
• 生态循环利用：切叶蚁的真菌农场和废弃物循环堪称零废弃循环经济的典范；兵蚁为保卫家园奋不顾身的利他行为（altruism）展现了极致的集体协作精神。

📝 课文理解深度练习 (Comprehension & Skills)

Reading Comprehension: Multiple Choice (P.171) Reading Comprehension: True / False / Not Given (P.172) Reading Skill: Synthesis & Main Ideas (P.173)

预习练习得分: 0 / 17 题

Reading Comprehension Part A: Multiple Choice (P.171)

READING COMPREHENSION · DETAIL

1. Why did E. O. Wilson study ants and not flies?

READING COMPREHENSION · DETAIL

2. What is Nepenthes?

READING COMPREHENSION · DETAIL

3. According to Wilson, what would many people find surprising about the Dominican Republic?

READING COMPREHENSION · DETAIL

4. What is the book The Superorganism about?

READING COMPREHENSION · REFERENCE

5. In paragraph L, the word 'some' refers to:

READING COMPREHENSION · RHETORICAL PURPOSE

6. Wilson mentions the statistics in paragraph N to:

READING COMPREHENSION · MAIN IDEA

7. According to Wilson's responses, how are humans unique?

Reading Comprehension Part B: True / False / Not Given (P.172)

READING COMPREHENSION · EVALUATING STATEMENTS

1. According to Wilson, more people visit zoos in the United States than attend professional sporting events.

READING COMPREHENSION · EVALUATING STATEMENTS

2. The insects that fall to the bottom of the water inside the Malaysian pitcher plant are mostly ants.

READING COMPREHENSION · EVALUATING STATEMENTS

3. Solitary animals find it more difficult to maintain and defend a nest than colonial animals.

READING COMPREHENSION · EVALUATING STATEMENTS

4. The average human weighs about the same as a million ants.

READING COMPREHENSION · EVALUATING STATEMENTS

5. Female ants are usually not found in ant colonies.

READING COMPREHENSION · EVALUATING STATEMENTS

6. Ants keep themselves so clean that epidemics seldom occur in ant colonies.

Reading Skill Part A: Synthesis & Main Idea Evaluation (P.173)

READING SKILL · MULTIPLE ANSWERS

1. Which TWO activities did E. O. Wilson say he did as a child?

READING SKILL · MULTIPLE ANSWERS

2. What TWO examples does E. O. Wilson give to support his claim that 'we're just beginning exploration'?

READING SKILL · MULTIPLE ANSWERS

3. What TWO examples does E. O. Wilson give to support his claim that ants 'dominate ecosystems'?

READING SKILL · MULTIPLE ANSWERS

4. Which TWO features does E. O. Wilson say are characteristic of an ant colony?

🎯 8B 核心词汇综合闯关 (Practice & Collocations)

Part A: Sentence Completion (P.174) Part B: Context & Definitions (P.174) Part C: Collocations (P.174)

词汇精练得分: 0 / 13 题

Vocabulary Practice Part A: Sentence Completion (P.174)

VOCABULARY PRACTICE · COMPLETION

1. When it comes to war, army ant colonies ___ an extreme fighting spirit.

VOCABULARY PRACTICE · COMPLETION

2. Although a(n) ___ ant can do no real damage, a large swarm can inflict fatal attacks.

VOCABULARY PRACTICE · COMPLETION

3. ...a large swarm can inflict ___ attacks on thousands of insects and small animals within hours.

VOCABULARY PRACTICE · COMPLETION

4. The ants turn the soil, move nutrients and ___ matter, and help disperse seeds.

Vocabulary Practice Part B: Context & Definitions (P.174)