🎁 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
http://online1.tingclass.net/voas…/2016/20161103sa_earth.mp3🎁
🎁 中英文稿：
River otters, like other social animals, have to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of hanging out in large groups. A big group makes it easier to catch fish, which seems like a good deal, but there's a downside to social life too. More otters means more chances for disease transmission, for example, or for aggressive conflict. So they balance these pressures by living in what researchers call a "fission-fusion society."
水獺，和其他群居動物一樣，都會仔細權衡一下和群居的利與弊。群居生活可以更容易抓魚，這似乎不錯，但是，群居對社交生活也有不利的方面。更多的水獺意味著疾病傳染的幾率也就越大，例如矛盾衝突。所以，他們就要平衡一下生活在聚散型群體中的壓力。
"There's this constant dynamic of splitting and joining into larger groups."
這其實就是不斷的分散，然後融合到更大的群體中。
University of Wyoming ecologist Adi Barocas. To understand the factors that drive these social dynamics, Barocas's team, from the University of Wyoming and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, has spent decades spying on the coastal river otters of Alaska near Prince William Sound. To do it, they use motion-activated camera traps as well as implanted radio trackers.
Adi Barocas是美國懷俄明州立大學的生態學家。為了瞭解驅使這些社交動態的因素，來自美國懷俄明州立大學和阿拉斯加漁業和捕獵部門的Barocas的團隊，耗時數十年監測威廉王子灣附近阿拉斯加地區的海岸水獺。為了進行觀察，他們使用了觸發式照相機以及無線電追蹤技術。
"The latrines, which are pretty much communal toilets that the river otters use, they seem to have an important function in the life of river otters."
“廁所,河水水獺使用公的共廁所,似乎對水獺的的生活具有重要的作用。
That's right: river otter society is organized around the bathroom. It makes good sense. By investigating a latrine, an otter can sniff out just how many otters there are in the area, and who they might be.
的確，水獺群體是圍繞廁所形成的。這很容易理解。通過調查公共廁所，一隻水獺就可以嗅出有多少只水獺在這個區域，同時水獺都是誰。
The researchers found that the otters performed more signaling behaviors like sniffing, body rubbing, or urinating, than social behaviors, like grooming or play, at what they called crossover latrines, which were located at the junctions of water bodies.
👯 MP3音檔 (按右鍵可下載聽)：
