科学美国人60秒 SSS 隐形杀手搭便车来到本地植物幼苗上

（单词翻译）

Invisible Killers¹ Hitchhike on Native Plant Seedlings²

When wildfires rip through a landscape, firefighters have the first—and most immediate—job. But then, that burned moonscape often passes into the hands of restoration ecologists, who yank out invasive species, and plant native seedlings instead.

当森林大火肆虐时，消防员会接到首要任务也就是最直接的任务。但是，那些被烧毁的月球表面景观，常常会被修复生态学家们接管，他们会将入侵物种剔除，取而代之的是种植本地的幼苗。

"We try to artificially give a start to these communities that should resemble the communities that were there prior to a disturbance³." Matteo Garbelotto, a plant pathologist at UC Berkeley. The problem, he says, is that microscopic⁴ killers sometimes hitchhike on native seedlings grown in nurseries. As happened at one restoration site in the San Francisco Bay area, where restorers hoped that nursery-grown natives called toyons and sticky monkeyflowers could be reintroduced.

“我们试图人为地给这些社区一个起点，让它们看起来像骚乱之前的社区。”加州大学伯克利分校的植物病理学家Matteo Garbelotto说。他说，问题是微生物杀手，有时会搭便车到苗圃里生长的本地幼苗上，就像在旧金山湾区的一个修复地点发生的那样，修复者希望在那里，被称为“玩具”和“粘猴花”的本地苗圃能够被重新引入。

"Plant ecologists were saying why are these toyons dying here, or why are these sticky monkeyflowers dying in large numbers in this restoration site? And so it happens that each one of those plant species was reintroduced in a restoration effort and had one or sometimes multiple of these pathogens that belonged to the genus Phytophthora, which incidentally is the same genus of the pathogen that causes Sudden Oak Death, and it's also the same genus of the pathogen that caused the Irish Potato Famine."

“植物生态学家说，为什么这些玩具会死在这里，或者为什么这些黏糊糊的粘猴花，会在这个修复地点大量死亡?”所以它发生的每一个植物物种中重新恢复精力,有时一个或多个这些病原体属于疫霉属,顺便说一句，是同一属的病原体导致橡树的突然死亡等,这也是同一属的病原体导致爱尔兰马铃薯饥荒。”

Garbelotto and his colleagues surveyed five native plant nurseries for the Phytophthora pathogen. And found that more than a quarter of the plants sampled were infected. They also discovered, in separate work, that a common chemical used to suppress the pathogen in nurseries can actually breed resistance. "The passage of these strains through these production facilities, sometimes it can make them more aggressive."

Garbelotto和他的同事调查了5个当地的植物苗圃，研究疫霉菌病原体。并发现超过四分之一的植物样本被感染。他们还在另一项研究中发现，在托儿所中，一种常用的用来抑制病原体的化学物质，实际上可以产生耐药性。“这些菌株通过这些生产设施，有时会使它们更具侵略性。”

They reported their work in the journals PLOS ONE and Plant Pathology.

研究成果发表在《公共科学图书馆·综合》和《植物病理学》杂志上。

But there is a solution to root out these invisible killers. A year-long regimen of stricter sanitation⁵ at native plant nurseries—like pasteurizing pots and soil—appeared to eliminate the pathogen. And disease-free seedlings means damaged landscapes have a better chance at bouncing back.

但是有一种方法可以根除这些隐形杀手。在当地的植物苗圃——如巴氏杀菌罐和土壤——实行了一年的严格卫生制度，似乎消除了病原体。无病的幼苗意味着受损的景观有更好的机会复原。