万物简史 第529期:丰富多彩的生命(25)

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and you will be holding up to 10 billion bacteria, most of them unknown to science. 你就会抓起l00亿个细菌，其中大多数是科学界不知道的。

Your sample will also contain perhaps a million plump yeasts², 你的样品里还会有大约l00万个胖乎乎的酵母，

some 200,000 hairy little fungi³ known as molds, perhaps 10,000 protozoans (of which the most familiar is the amoeba), 大约20万个毛茸茸的名叫霉菌的小真菌，大约l万个原生动物（其中最熟悉的是变形虫），

and assorted⁴ rotifers, flatworms, roundworms, and other microscopic⁵ creatures known collectively as cryptozoa. 以及各种轮虫、扁虫、圆虫和其他微生物，总称潜隐体。

A large portion of these will also be unknown. 其中很大的一部分也还不清楚。

The most comprehensive handbook of microorganisms, Bergey's Manual of Systematic⁶ Bacteriology, lists about 4,000 types of bacteria. 最全面的微生物手册《伯吉氏系统化细菌学手册》列出了大约4000种细菌。

In the 1980s, a pair of Norwegian scientists, Jostein Goksoyr and Vigdis Torsvik, 20世纪80年代，在卑尔根·约斯泰因·戈克瑟尔和维格迪丝·托斯维克两位挪威科学家

collected a gram of random⁷ soil from a beech⁸ forest near their lab in Bergen and carefully analyzed⁹ its bacterial¹⁰ content. 在实验室附近的山毛榉林里随意采集了一克泥土，仔细分析了里面的细菌含量。

They found that this single small sample contained between 4,000 and 5,000 separate bacterial species, more than in the whole of Bergey's Manual. 他们发现，这个小小的样品里就有4000-5000种不同的细菌，比《伯吉氏手册》里收录的全部数量还要多。

They then traveled to a coastal¹¹ location a few miles away, 接着，他们来到几公里外的海边，

scooped¹² up another gram of earth, and found that it contained 4,000 to 5,000 other species. 又抓起一克泥土，发现里面有4000-5000种别的细菌。

As Edward O. Wilson observes: "If over 9,000 microbial types exist in two pinches of substrate from two localities in Norway, 正如爱德华·O·威尔逊说的：“要是9000多种细菌存在于挪威两个不同地方的两撮土里，

how many more await discovery in other, radically¹³ different habitats?" 那么别的完全不同的地方又有多少种有待发现呢？”

Well, according to one estimate, it could be as high as 400 million. 哎呀，据有人估计，很可能多达4亿种。

 

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