For every two species lost in a grassland, the remaining flowers there bloomed a day earlier-on par with changes due to rising global temperatures. Christopher Intagliata reports.
草原上每失去两个物种，余下的花就提前一天绽放，这与全球变暖造成的影响类似。克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔报道。
撰文/播音：克里斯托弗·因塔利亚塔(Christopher Intagliata)
翻译：郭鑫鹏
审校：丁可含
As climate change dials up global temperatures, one effect is an earlier flower bloom. But it turns out there’s another factor that also means faster flowering: a loss in biodiversity in a flower field.
气候变化导致全球气温升高，花期提前。但是导致开花期提前的因素还有一个：花海中生态多样性的丧失。
“The amount of change in flowering time that we see with diversity loss is in the same magnitude range as the amount of change in flowering time we see with rising temperature, globally.” Amy Wolf, an ecologist at Columbia University and U.C. Davis.
“多样性缺失对花期的影响之大等同于全球气温升高对它的影响。”哥伦比亚大学和戴维斯大学生态学家埃米·沃尔夫说。
Wolf and her colleagues studied that effect in a grassland in northern California, in study plots with two to 16 species of plants. And they found that, for every two species lost, the remaining flowers blossomed a day earlier, on average. Possibly because the less diverse plots had higher soil temperatures, more moisture, and more nitrogen-all variables that could tweak bloom time. The study is in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. [Amelia A. Wolf et al., Flowering phenology shifts in response to biodiversity loss]
沃尔夫和她的同事在加利福尼亚州北部一片草原上对这个效应进行研究，实验场地中包含了2到16个植物物种。他们发现，每失去两个物种，剩下的花朵开放时间平均提前一天。可能是因为多样性贫乏导致土地温度更高，水分含量更高，含氮量更高，这些因素都会影响花开时间。这项研究发表在《美国国家科学院院刊》上。
The reason it matters? Because flowers might bloom earlier than pollinators are expecting them.” And that could lead to a whole cascade of things. If plants don’t get pollinated, or they don’t get pollinated well, then you can start to lose species at an even more rapid rate.”
但这又有什么关系呢？因为这样花朵会比传粉者期望的更早绽放。“那将导致一连串的变化。如果植物没有得到传粉，或它们没有很好地得到传粉，物种会以更快的速度消亡。”
Wolf says it’s too soon to know whether biodiversity loss and climate change will have synergistic effects on flower timing. But combine climate change, species loss, and unpredictable ecological effects like this-and you’ve got a pretty ugly arrangement.
沃尔夫说现在还不知道生态多样性缺失和气候变化是否在开花时间上有协同效应。但是气候变化，物种缺失，和这样不可预知的生态效应，使得未来情况不容乐观。
-Christopher Intagliata
https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/low-biodiversity-brings-earlier-bloom/
