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Honeybees are attracted to a fungicide used in agriculture with "unsettling
implications" for global food production, a scientist said Tuesday.
周二，一位科学家说到：“蜜蜂被农作物喷洒的杀虫剂吸引，这会给全球的食品生产带来看不见的安全隐患”。
Tests carried out by a team from the University of Illinois showed bees
preferred to collect sugar syrup laced with the fungicide chlorothalonil over
sugar syrup alone.
来自伊利诺里斯大学的一个团队做了一个实验，实验结果表明了蜜蜂更倾向于在洒了杀虫剂的植物上采蜜。
The finding follows other studies linking fungicides to a worldwide plunge
in honeybee and wild bee populations that are crucial for pollinating crops.
这个实验也印证了其他研究，即杀虫剂的使用与全球蜂蜜产量骤减和野蜂数量萎缩有一定的联系，而蜂群数量对农作物的授粉至关重要。
Bees are kind of like humans in that they sometimes like things that aren’t
necessarily good for them, said University of Illinois entomology professor May
Berenbaum, who led the research.
主持这个研究的May Berenbaum是来自伊利诺里斯大学的昆虫学家，她说道：蜜蜂跟人类有点像，它们有时候喜欢做对他们不一定好的事情。
She said fungicides were bad news for bees because they could exacerbate
the toxicity of pesticides and kill off beneficial fungi in hives.
她继续说道：杀虫剂对蜜蜂不利，杀虫剂加重了杀虫剂的毒性，还会杀死蜂巢里面有益的菌种。
Her team set up two feeding stations in an enclosure allowing the bees to
choose sugar syrup laced with a test chemical or without. The chemicals included
three fungicides and two herbicides at various concentrations.
她的团队设置了两个喂给站，一个是附属在测试化学物品上的糖浆，另一个则没有。这个化学物品包含三种杀虫剂以及不同浓度的杀草剂。
The researchers were taken aback to find the bees choosing one of the
fungicides.
研究者很吃惊的发现蜜蜂选择了其中带有杀虫剂的食物
It was a surprise when they actually liked them, Berenbaum told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation by phone, adding that it could explain why fungicide
contamination in hives was so common.
“它们真的喜欢杀虫剂这点令人吃惊”Berenbaum在电话里对路透基金会说，同时补充道这就可以解释为什么杀虫剂污染在蜂巢中这么普遍。
This is not anything that anyone had even thought about before, so we need
to readjust our focus because there certainly could be implications for
agriculture, she said.
此前任何人都没想到会是这样的结果，因此我们需要重新调整重心，因为这对农业确实会产生安全隐患。
However, she said the bees actively avoided a second tested fungicide and
were neutral about a third.
然而，她指出，蜜蜂显然对第二种味道的杀虫剂比较排斥，对三种则是不温不火
The scientists said the findings were "worrisome" in light of research
showing fungicides interfere with honeybees’ ability to metabolize pesticides
used by beekeepers to kill parasitic mites that infest their hives.
科学家说这个发现很令人担忧，它表明杀虫剂会影响蜜蜂代谢杀虫剂的能力，而那些杀虫剂是养蜂人为了杀死那些干扰蜂箱的寄生虫用的。
The scientists were also surprised to find the bees showed a taste for the
widely used herbicide glyphosate.
科学家同样惊奇的发现蜜蜂对广泛使用的除草剂草甘膦表现出很大的兴趣。
A study by the Center for Biological Diversity last year said hundreds of
native bee species in North America and Hawaii were sliding toward
extinction.
去年，物种差异研究中心的结果表明，美国北部及夏威夷当地有近几百种蜜蜂濒临灭绝。
It said bees provided more than $3 billion in fruit-pollination services
each year in the United States.
在美国，蜜蜂每年可通过对水果授粉创造三十亿美元的价值
Experts have blamed habitat loss, heavy pesticide use, climate change and
increasing urbanization for declining numbers.
专家指出，栖息地的丧失、杀虫剂的过度使用、气候的变化、城市化的快速发展都是导致蜜蜂数量减少的原因。
The United Nations recently announced an annual World Bee Day on May 20 to
raise awareness of their importance and declining numbers.
最近，美国政府宣布五月二十号为世界蜜蜂日，以此来提高人们对蜜蜂作用及其数量锐减的重视。 |
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发表于 2018-1-13 13:30:18