科学美国人60秒 SSS Flowers Deceive Flies with Chemical Cocktail
时间：2018-12-24 作者：英语课 分类：2016年Scientific American(十)月
Honeybee stings are painful. But they're also… fragrant 1. "If a beekeeper gets stung by bees, it smells like banana." Dr. Stefan D?tterl, a plant ecologist at the University of Salzburg in Austria.
That banana scent 2, he says, is a compound called isoamyl acetate - also known as banana oil. It's one of many compounds produced when a bee stings - a mix of alarm pheromones that let the hive know that another bee's in danger.
But that chemical cocktail 3 doesn't just attract other bees. It also draws tiny flies known as kleptoparasites, "or so-called 'food stealers'." The flies feed on the drippings of bees being devoured 4 by spiders. And they sense the bees' chemical calls for help as a dinner bell.
Turns out, though, it's not the flies… but a flower that has the last word in this tale of trickery. Because researchers have now discovered that the flowers of a South African plant - called the parachute plant - produce nearly three dozen of the 90-some compounds in that honeybee alarm call. Meaning they mimic 5 the scent of a honeybee in danger--to lure 6 in and temporarily trap the flies, as a pollination 7 ploy 8. The findings are in the journal Current Biology. [Annemarie Heiduk et al., Ceropegia sandersonii Mimics 9 Attacked Honeybees to Attract Kleptoparasitic Flies for Pollination]
The plant of course isn't aware of this bait-and-switch. "It's just by chance that this plant produced these compounds and attracted these small flies as pollinators. And thus by time, it was possible to refine these plants, and to add another and another compound to finally get such a nice cocktail." A cocktail, though, that won't be followed by a meal.
—Christopher Intagliata
- The Fragrant Hills are exceptionally beautiful in late autumn.深秋的香山格外美丽。
- The air was fragrant with lavender.空气中弥漫薰衣草香。
- The air was filled with the scent of lilac.空气中弥漫着丁香花的芬芳。
- The flowers give off a heady scent at night.这些花晚上散发出醉人的芳香。
- We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
- At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上，人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。
- She devoured everything she could lay her hands on: books, magazines and newspapers. 无论是书、杂志，还是报纸，只要能弄得到，她都看得津津有味。
- The lions devoured a zebra in a short time. 狮子一会儿就吃掉了一匹斑马。
- A parrot can mimic a person's voice.鹦鹉能学人的声音。
- He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another.他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。
- Life in big cities is a lure for many country boys.大城市的生活吸引着许多乡下小伙子。
- He couldn't resist the lure of money.他不能抵制金钱的诱惑。
- The flowers get pollination by insects.这些花通过昆虫授粉。
- Without sufficient pollination,the growth of the corn is stunted.没有得到充足的授粉，谷物的长势就会受阻。
- I think this is just a government ploy to deceive the public.我认为这只是政府欺骗公众的手段。
- Christmas should be a time of excitement and wonder,not a cynical marketing ploy.圣诞节应该是兴奋和美妙的时刻，而不该是一种肆无忌惮的营销策略。
- Methods:Models were generate by CT scan,Mimics software and Abaqus software. 方法：采用CT扫描，Mimics软件和Abaqus软件的CAD进行三维有限元模型的创建。 来自互联网
- Relaxing the mind and body mimics the effect that some blood-pressure pills would have. 放松身心会产生某些降压药才能产生的效果。 来自辞典例句