原文字數:1039

譯文字數:2000

Creatures in the deepest trenches of the sea are eating plastic[1]

海底深處的生物竟然會吃塑膠

In six of the ocean's deepest crevasses, scientists found tiny shrimp-like creatures chomping on tiny bits of plastic.

科學家們在六個海洋最深處的裂縫之中，發現了一種小蝦一般的生物，喀滋喀滋地嚼著微型塑膠碎片。

 

PLASTIC LITTER IS now virtually inescapable throughout every crevice of the world's oceans, and a newly published study finds, for the first time, that the creatures living in the deepest, most remote environs on Earth are eating it in startling amounts.

海洋之中的每個孔隙，現今都無可避免地遍布了塑膠垃圾。新刊出的一項研究首次發現，有一種生物居住在地球上最深、最遠的區域之中，它們正以一種雷霆萬鈞之勢吃下這些塑膠垃圾。

A British research team captured amphipods, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans that scavenge on the seabed, from six of the world's deepest ocean trenches and took them back to their lab. There, they discovered that more than 80 percent of the amphipods had plastic fibers and particles in their digestive systems, known as the hindgut. The deeper the trench, the more fibers they found. In the Mariana Trench, the deepest at more than seven miles beneath the waves in the western Pacific, the scientists found fibers in 100 percent of the samples–in every amphipod collected. Prior studies of plastic particles ingested by marine organisms caught near the surface have found far smaller percentages.

英國的一個研究小組從世界上六個最深的海溝之中捕獲了一種在海床上以腐肉、垃圾為食，長得像小蝦子的端足類甲殼動物，並將其帶回實驗室。他們發現這種端足動物的消化系統(稱為後腸)中超過8成都有塑膠纖維和顆粒。海溝越深，發現的纖維就越多。其中最深的是在西太平洋海面下方超過七英里深的馬里亞納海溝，科學家發現，這些樣本百分之百都能找到纖維，收集到的每一隻都是，毫無例外。在先前調查海面附近捕獲的海洋生物攝入塑膠顆粒的研究之中，研究發現的比例卻要小得多。

The new research, published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, adds new details to earlier research that only discovered plastic bits in sea floor sediment in 2014. But it fleshes out the picture shaping up of ocean trenches as the final sink for marine debris. That is not good news.

這項最新刊於《皇家學會開放科學》期刊的研究，為早期僅在2014年發現海底沉積物中有塑膠碎片的研究增添不少新的細節。但是它卻更加血淋淋地呈現出現況，將海溝塑造成一個海洋廢棄物最終的聚集地。這可不是個好消息。

Once the plastic particles sink to the deep sea, they've got nowhere else to go.

一旦塑膠顆粒沉入深海，它們也就別想再出來了。

“If we could magically snap our fingers over 10, 20, 50 years time and stop making plastic, what would happen to the plastic in the river? It would flush and wash out,” says Alan Jamieson, a marine biologist at Newcastle University and the study's lead author. “The coastlines would dilute and disperse. In the open ocean, the UV and wave action would act on that plastic and the surface would be clean again. What happens when you get to the deep sea, there's no dispersal or flushing. It's only going to get more and more and more.”

新堡大學的海洋生物學家，也是該研究的主要作者艾倫·詹米森說：「如果我們能夠神奇地彈下手指就跳到10年、20年、50年後並停止製造塑膠，那麼河裡的塑膠會發生什麼事呢？它會在經過河水的沖刷後被沖走。海岸線會將其沖淡、消散開來。在開闊的海洋之中，紫外線與波浪作用將會對塑膠產生影響，海面將再次乾淨起來。但是若你到深海看看呢？它不會消散或被沖刷走。它只會日積月累越積越多。」

He adds: “This is not a one-off find. The Pacific Ocean covers half the planet. Our study sites were off Japan and Peru and Chile in places separated by thousands of miles. We can now say with confidence that plastic is everywhere. Let's not waste our time looking for more. Let's concentrate our efforts on what it is actually doing.”

他又說：「這不是一個絕無僅有的發現。太平洋覆蓋了地球的一半。我們的研究地點位於日本、秘魯和智利這些相距數千英里的地方。此刻，我們可以信誓旦旦地說塑膠無所不在。所以別再把時間花在找這些塑膠的蹤跡上了。讓我們把精力放在它究竟在做什麼上吧。」

 

How did they sample so deep?

他們如何採樣地這麼深？

The research team sampled five trenches throughout the western Pacific and one deep-sea trench off the west coast of South America. Researchers deployed traps with bait wrapped carefully to avoid falsely contaminating a creature's insides with plastic.

研究小組對整個西太平洋的五個海溝和南美洲西海岸的一個深海海溝進行採樣。研究人員小心翼翼地將包裹著誘餌的陷阱佈署好，以免失誤地讓塑膠污染了生物的體內。

Once collected, they studied a deep part of the creature's digestive system called the hindgut. They wanted to ensure no plastic ingested after the amphipods were caught was making its way into their results.

收集到了之後，他們就會研究這種生物消化系統深處一個被稱為後腸的部分。他們想要確保端足動物在被捕獲之後就不再攝入任何塑膠，這樣有助於他們取得結果。

Inside, they found a rainbow of plastic items.

他們在這些生物的體內發現了各種顏色的塑膠物品。

Sixty-six percent of the plastic they found was blue fibers. Black, red, and purple fragments were also present, along with blue and pink fragments.

發現的塑膠之中有66％是藍色纖維。也出現黑色、紅色和紫色的碎片，以及藍色與粉色的碎片。

No trench was fiber-free, and more than 80 percent of the amphipods contained them. When tested, the fibers were the same used in textiles, and the study suggests they entered the ocean after leaching from washing machines.

無一例外，每個海溝都會發現纖維，而且有超過8成的端足動物體內都有。經過檢測之後，這些纖維與紡織品中所使用的纖維相同，而研究則表明這些纖維是在洗衣機中被過濾掉之後才進入海洋的。

Richard Thompson, a marine scientist at the University of Plymouth, whose 2014 study discovered the microplastics on the deep see floor, says the new work is “a missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle.”

普利茅斯大學的海洋科學家理查德·湯普森在其2014年的研究中發現了海底深層的微塑膠，他說這項新研究是「拼圖遊戲中所缺失的那塊拼圖」。

“The next thing is: is it causing any harm,” he asks. “It's a risk assessment. The more plastic you've got, the more likely a large number of creatures are going to interact with it. There are so few studies in the deep ocean, we are only beginning to understand it.”

他問道：「接下來就是：它是否會造成傷害？這是一項風險評估。塑膠越多，大量的生物就越可能受其影響。我們對深海的研究卻不多，對它的了解才正要開始而已。」

 

What does it mean for ocean food chains?

這對海洋食物鏈的影響是什麼？

Jamieson says the reactions he gets to the revelation that marine life at the bottom of the sea is eating plastic falls into two categories. The first is horror that no place on the planet has escaped the plastic invasion. The other category stuns.

對於海底生物吃塑膠這個發現，詹米森說他的反應可以分成兩種。第一種是恐懼，地球上竟然沒有任何地方能夠逃得了塑膠的入侵。另一種則是震驚。

“Believe it or not, they say, 'That's great. It means the contamination from land is now at the bottom of the sea and that’s a good result, isn’t it?'” he says. “It’s crazy that people like to think that way.”.

他說：「信不信由你，他們會說：『那很好啊。這就表示陸地上的污染現在都在海底了，結果挺好的，不是嗎？』竟然會這樣想，這些人是不是瘋了。」

“Humans have an odd relationship with depth,” Jamieson says. “When you talk about seven miles underwater, people freak out. Flip that 90 degrees. Seven miles is half the length of Manhattan. A marathoner could run it in 20 minutes. It’s a small world in many respects and throwing something into the sea, it can sink to places that you think are far away, which are not really.”

詹米森說：「人類與深度有一種奇異的關係。當你提到水下七英里時，大家就嚇得不得了。但是給它轉90度，放平之後，七英里就只是曼哈頓的一半而已。馬拉松選手在20分鐘之內就可以跑完它。從許多方面來說，這個世界其實很小，將東西扔進大海，它會沉到一個你認為非常遠的地方，但其實卻沒你想的這麼遠。」

Jamieson says the ocean should be considered in a different light—as part of one continuous body of water that covers most of the Earth’s surface, full of millions of animals all interacting with each other.”

詹米森說應該要從不同的觀點來看海洋，要將海洋當成覆蓋在大部分地球表面上的水體所延續的一部分，其中存有數百萬計的動物，牠們彼此之間都會相互產生作用。

Susanne Brander, an Oregon State University toxicologist who researches the effects of microplastics on larval fish, says the amphipods are becoming a vector to transport plastic particles into the food web.

俄勒岡州立大學的毒理學家蘇珊娜·布朗德研究微塑膠對幼魚的影響，她說端足動物將成為將塑膠顆粒送入食物網中的傳播媒介。

“The amphipods they are finding fibers in are prey for larger fish and those larger fish are prey for even larger predators,” she says. “These zooplankton at the base of the food chain are taking up the microfibers because they are similar in size to the phytoplankton they eat. And that puts these fibers into the food web. We are finding larger organisms with intestines lined with microfibers. They found a baleen whale that had been beached and when they cut it open, the intestines were lined with these smaller particles. They give us a snapshot of what's happening in a larger sense.”

她說：「那些在它們體內中發現纖維的端足動物是大型魚類的獵物，而後者又是更大型掠食者的獵物。由於微纖維的大小與這些食物鏈底部的浮游動物所吃的浮游植物類似，所以它們也會吃下微纖維。藉此將這些纖維納入食物網之中。我們在尋找腸道中佈滿微纖維的較大生物。他們找到了一條擱淺的鬚鯨，而當他們將它解剖後，發現腸道中佈滿了這些較小的顆粒。這讓我們得以一探更大範圍中究竟發生了什麼事。」

There are as many as 51 trillion pieces of plastic in the ocean, and 90 percent of that ocean plastic is microscopic. Scientists have previously likened it to a kind of “soup.”

有多達51兆的塑膠碎片沉浮在海洋之中，其中9成的塑膠都是肉眼無法看清的微小顆粒。科學家此前曾將其比喻成一種「湯」。

Last December, researchers from Japan warned National Geographic of the urgency to learn more about these remote places. Recreating the intense pressure of the deep sea in labs is difficult, and the full impacts of plastic on deep-sea organisms is still unknown or unconfirmed.

去年12月，日本的研究人員對《國家地理》提出告誡，催促我們需要更加深入地認識這片偏遠的區域。可是卻很難在實驗室中重建深海中的巨大壓力，而且目前為止對於塑膠對深海生物的全面影響仍然處於未知或未經證實的狀態。