狗栏造就新景象

Southern Australia’s Strzelecki Desert is home to two very different landscapes: an area of 10-meter-high sand dunes with patches of dense woody shrubs, and—just a few kilometers away—shorter and flatter dunes surrounded by sparse vegetation.

澳大利亚南部的斯切莱茨基沙漠拥有两种截然不同的景象：一面是10米高的沙丘，带有成块的茂密的灌木丛，而另一面—仅仅几公里之隔—则是更为矮小平缓的沙丘，被零星的植被所围绕。

The reason for the difference? Dingoes.

这样不同原因何在呢？答案就是澳洲野狗！

That’s the conclusion of a study published this week in the Journal of The Royal Society Interface, in which researchers compared the landscape on either side of a 5000-kilometer-long wire mesh dingo fence.

这是最近一项研究的结论，该研究发表于《英国皇家学会》杂志的页面上，研究者们对比了长达5000公里的钢丝网澳洲野狗栅栏两侧的不同景象。

Built almost a century ago to keep Australia’s wild dogs from private land and livestock, the structure appears to have altered an entire ecosystem, the team found.

这些栅栏修建于大约一个世纪以前，用来将澳洲野狗拦在私人土地和牲口的外面，这支研究团队发现，这些栅栏结构似乎已经改变了整个生态环境。

When the researchers compared drone-captured images of the dunes and vegetation cover on either side of the fence to historical aerial photographs taken between 1948 and 1999, they discovered that there are about 60 more woody shrubs per hectare on the side of the fence with no dingoes than on the other side.

当研究员们将无人机拍摄的沙丘和植被照片和1948和1999年航拍的老照片进行对比后，他们发现没有澳洲野狗的栅栏一侧比另一侧每英亩要多60块灌木丛。

The dunes on the nondingo side are also about 66 centimeters taller.

而没有澳洲野狗一侧的沙丘也要高出66厘米。

The likely explanation, the team says, is that without a top predator like the dingo, smaller hunters such as foxes and cats have flourished, decimating prey species like hopping mice and rabbits.

该团队说，可能的解释原因，就在于没有了像澳洲野狗这样的顶级捕食者，更小的捕食者比如狐狸和猫就繁荣昌盛起来，大量捕杀像跳鼠和兔子这样的猎物物种。

With fewer animals left to eat the plant seeds, the shrub cover has increased.

剩下的吃植物种子的动物更少了，于是灌木丛植被数就增加了。

The shrubs hold down sand and cause winds to skim over their tops, causing dunes to grow taller and carving the landscape differently on the two sides of the fence.

灌木丛可以固定砂砾，让风从它们的顶部掠过，这样使得沙丘变得更高了，从而造成了栅栏两侧不同的景象。

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