Cockroach Caca Contains Chemical Messages Made by Microbes
“美食”共分享
Microbes play a huge role in our nutrition, our immunity, maybe even our mental health. But we aren’t the only ones that rely on these armies of resident bacteria. "Baby cockroaches, the ones that just emerge from the egg, don't have any gut bacteria." Coby Schal, an entomologist and chemical ecologist at North Carolina State University. "The first thing they do is take a nice feces meal: basically, eating the poop of their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers."
微生物在我們的營養(yǎng)、免疫甚至心理健康中都發(fā)揮著重要的作用。但是并只是我們?nèi)祟愐蕾囘@些常住細(xì)菌。“那些剛才出殼的幼兒蟑螂，腸道內(nèi)并沒有細(xì)菌�！笨票取ど碃柺潜笨_萊納州立大學(xué)的一名昆蟲學(xué)者和化學(xué)生態(tài)學(xué)家。他講到，“這些剛出生的蟑螂所作的第一件事情就是享受一場糞便盛宴，基本上就是吃他們兄弟姐妹和父母的糞便�！�
Excrement inoculates the roaches with beneficial gut bugs, Schal says. And it's also a longevity-boosting nutritional supplement. But the weirdest thing is, the poop actually calls the tots to come hither. Because it's laced with compounds, like fatty acids, that attract roaches of all ages. The substances are called aggregation pheromones. So poop essentially serves as a rallying call to congregate—and feast.
沙爾稱，糞便孕育蟑螂擁有有益的腸道細(xì)菌。同時(shí)糞便還為蟑螂提供長期的營養(yǎng)供給。但是最奇怪的事情是，這些糞便會(huì)招引一些幼兒的蟑螂。因?yàn)檫@些糞便中含有脂肪酸等有機(jī)化合物，會(huì)吸引各個(gè)年齡階段的蟑螂。這些物質(zhì)被稱為聚合信息素。所以糞便實(shí)際上是蟑螂們聚集——享受盛宴的集合信號。
To determine where the attractive chemicals come from, Schal and his colleagues raised a group of sterile, microbe-free cockroaches—and then collected their excrement.
為了確定這些有吸引力的化學(xué)物質(zhì)來自哪里，沙爾和同事們飼養(yǎng)了一群無菌的、無微生物的蟑螂，并收集了他們的排泄物。
But as they suspected, the sterile stuff, without any microbial by-products, failed to tantalize other roaches. They then gave the sterile bugs a fecal transplant. "So we took feces of normal cockroaches, and exposed sterile cockroaches to those feces. They very readily eat these feces and they incorporate the microbes, the bacteria from these feces, into their gut. And then these cockroaches then produce the aggregation pheromone again." They published the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
但是令他們懷疑的是，這些無菌、沒有任何微生物副產(chǎn)品的糞便并沒有吸引其他的蟑螂。之后，研究人員給這些無菌的蟲子進(jìn)行糞便移植。“我們收集正常蟑螂的糞便，然后將無菌的蟑螂來接觸這些糞便。這些無菌的蟑螂非常樂意享受這些糞便，然后它們就會(huì)吸收這些糞便中的微生物和細(xì)菌。之后這些蟑螂就會(huì)產(chǎn)生聚合信息素�！毖芯咳藛T將研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在《美國國家科學(xué)院院刊》上。
The results suggest gut bacteria may do a lot more than we thought—including, at least for cockroaches, aid communication. That's a plus for us—because we might be able to hijack those compounds to build better baits and traps. To make sure that [Clip from commercial: "Roaches check in… but they don't check out."]
研究結(jié)果表明腸道細(xì)菌的功能可能比我們想象的要多——其中對于蟑螂來說，包括輔助交流。這對我們來說有幫助的——因?yàn)槲覀兓蛟S可以劫持這些化合物來構(gòu)建更好的誘餌和陷阱。保證蟑螂們“有進(jìn)無出” 。
“美食”共分享
Microbes play a huge role in our nutrition, our immunity, maybe even our mental health. But we aren’t the only ones that rely on these armies of resident bacteria. "Baby cockroaches, the ones that just emerge from the egg, don't have any gut bacteria." Coby Schal, an entomologist and chemical ecologist at North Carolina State University. "The first thing they do is take a nice feces meal: basically, eating the poop of their brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers."
微生物在我們的營養(yǎng)、免疫甚至心理健康中都發(fā)揮著重要的作用。但是并只是我們?nèi)祟愐蕾囘@些常住細(xì)菌。“那些剛才出殼的幼兒蟑螂，腸道內(nèi)并沒有細(xì)菌�！笨票取ど碃柺潜笨_萊納州立大學(xué)的一名昆蟲學(xué)者和化學(xué)生態(tài)學(xué)家。他講到，“這些剛出生的蟑螂所作的第一件事情就是享受一場糞便盛宴，基本上就是吃他們兄弟姐妹和父母的糞便�！�
Excrement inoculates the roaches with beneficial gut bugs, Schal says. And it's also a longevity-boosting nutritional supplement. But the weirdest thing is, the poop actually calls the tots to come hither. Because it's laced with compounds, like fatty acids, that attract roaches of all ages. The substances are called aggregation pheromones. So poop essentially serves as a rallying call to congregate—and feast.
沙爾稱，糞便孕育蟑螂擁有有益的腸道細(xì)菌。同時(shí)糞便還為蟑螂提供長期的營養(yǎng)供給。但是最奇怪的事情是，這些糞便會(huì)招引一些幼兒的蟑螂。因?yàn)檫@些糞便中含有脂肪酸等有機(jī)化合物，會(huì)吸引各個(gè)年齡階段的蟑螂。這些物質(zhì)被稱為聚合信息素。所以糞便實(shí)際上是蟑螂們聚集——享受盛宴的集合信號。
To determine where the attractive chemicals come from, Schal and his colleagues raised a group of sterile, microbe-free cockroaches—and then collected their excrement.
為了確定這些有吸引力的化學(xué)物質(zhì)來自哪里，沙爾和同事們飼養(yǎng)了一群無菌的、無微生物的蟑螂，并收集了他們的排泄物。
But as they suspected, the sterile stuff, without any microbial by-products, failed to tantalize other roaches. They then gave the sterile bugs a fecal transplant. "So we took feces of normal cockroaches, and exposed sterile cockroaches to those feces. They very readily eat these feces and they incorporate the microbes, the bacteria from these feces, into their gut. And then these cockroaches then produce the aggregation pheromone again." They published the findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
但是令他們懷疑的是，這些無菌、沒有任何微生物副產(chǎn)品的糞便并沒有吸引其他的蟑螂。之后，研究人員給這些無菌的蟲子進(jìn)行糞便移植。“我們收集正常蟑螂的糞便，然后將無菌的蟑螂來接觸這些糞便。這些無菌的蟑螂非常樂意享受這些糞便，然后它們就會(huì)吸收這些糞便中的微生物和細(xì)菌。之后這些蟑螂就會(huì)產(chǎn)生聚合信息素�！毖芯咳藛T將研究結(jié)果發(fā)表在《美國國家科學(xué)院院刊》上。
The results suggest gut bacteria may do a lot more than we thought—including, at least for cockroaches, aid communication. That's a plus for us—because we might be able to hijack those compounds to build better baits and traps. To make sure that [Clip from commercial: "Roaches check in… but they don't check out."]
研究結(jié)果表明腸道細(xì)菌的功能可能比我們想象的要多——其中對于蟑螂來說，包括輔助交流。這對我們來說有幫助的——因?yàn)槲覀兓蛟S可以劫持這些化合物來構(gòu)建更好的誘餌和陷阱。保證蟑螂們“有進(jìn)無出” 。
