密歇根新闻广播 小红虾到底是入侵物种还是美味佳肴?

小红虾到底是入侵物种还是美味佳肴?

Around the Great Lakes, millions of dollars are spent to fight invasive species like Asian carp. But when scientists find a new animal or plant in the area, it’s not always clear if it’s harmful or helpful.

The bloody¹ red shrimp² is roughly the size of a pencil eraser. They came to the Great Lakes around 2006, hitching³ a ride in the ballast water of cargo⁴ ships from the Black Sea.

Since then, they’ve worked their way into all of the Great Lakes except Superior.

Scott McNaught, a biology professor at Central Michigan University, says food sources for the shrimp are mainly animal plankton⁵ and algae⁶. But mention the bloody red shrimp as "invasive," and he grimaces⁷.

“'Invasive' is kind of a tricky⁸ word. We like to say an organism is invasive if it’s causing some negative impact on the environment," he says. "Or economic impact, or even an aesthetic⁹ impact.”

So for the moment, McNaught says, the bloody red shrimp is simply labeled non-native.

Emily Wimmer is a graduate assistant of McNaught's. She’s doing research to see whether the bloody shrimp could have a positive impact on the Great Lakes ecosystem¹⁰.

“What can we do with them, how can we benefit?" she says. "Can they serve a purpose to something. And here we have a native species, these lake trout¹¹ fry, that are struggling to survive, can these fry utilize¹² them as a food source, can we have a native predator¹³ of the Great Lakes come back?”

Wimmer says Michigan officials are struggling to get lake trout to reproduce naturally in the environment, and some people think a lack of food is the problem.

Maybe, she says, the bloody red shrimp could become a helpful food source.

In a lab used by McNaught and Wimmer, tiny, blue-gray fish dark around a green tub. The lab is chilly¹⁴, to mimic¹⁵ the cold temperatures of the Great Lakes.

On a table across from the tub are tiny containers for the bloody red shrimp: marked small, medium, and large.

The shrimp, known as hemimysis, don’t look like much. Translucent¹⁶ with spots of red, and so tiny they're barely visible.

McNaught gestures at the tub and points out that the entire school of shrimp would barely make an hors d'oeuvre. These aren’t the kind of shrimp you eat.

Not worth eating for humans, maybe, but Wimmer says the results have been conclusive¹⁷ for young lake trout, known as fry.

“Well, first of all, the lake trout fry are able to eat these hemimysis," she says. "That was the big question that we were looking for.”

So, there’s scientific evidence that the bloody shrimp doesn’t need to be called invasive, right?

Not so fast, says McNaught.

One of his experiments involves invasive quagga mussels. He thinks the mussels and bloody red shrimp together could decimate plankton populations, which are essential to the local ecosystem.

In the end, a Michigan committee will decide whether to label the bloody red shrimp as invasive.

Even though the shrimp has already made its home in Michigan, it could still be classified as invasive, says Joanne Foreman, who handles communications on invasives for several state agencies.

“We never say, 'It’s already here, it’s too late.' We do look at different stages of invasion," she says.

"And then at each stage we have to determine what is reasonable and what is feasible. What sort of actions might be able to contain and eradicate¹⁸ that species, or if that’s not possible, how do we manage the effects and try to reduce the spread of that population.”

McNaught and Wimmer say it’s too early to label the bloody red shrimp.

“So what I’m trying to say is that science is not black and white, it’s gray, it’s fuzzy, the screen keeps going on the fritz,” says McNaught.

Until more definitive¹⁹ research comes along, the bloody red shrimp will continue to swim in that gray area.

1 bloody   

adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染

参考例句：

• He got a bloody nose in the fight.他在打斗中被打得鼻子流血。
• He is a bloody fool.他是一个十足的笨蛋。

2 shrimp   

n.虾，小虾；矮小的人

参考例句：

• When the shrimp farm is built it will block the stream.一旦养虾场建起来，将会截断这条河流。
• When it comes to seafood,I like shrimp the best.说到海鲜，我最喜欢虾。

3 hitching   

搭乘； （免费）搭乘他人之车( hitch的现在分词 )； 搭便车； 攀上； 跃上

参考例句：

• The farmer yoked the oxen before hitching them to the wagon. 农夫在将牛套上大车之前先给它们套上轭。
• I saw an old man hitching along on his stick. 我看见一位老人拄着手杖蹒跚而行。

4 cargo   

n.(一只船或一架飞机运载的)货物

参考例句：

• The ship has a cargo of about 200 ton.这条船大约有200吨的货物。
• A lot of people discharged the cargo from a ship.许多人从船上卸下货物。

5 plankton   

n.浮游生物

参考例句：

• Plankton is at the bottom of the marine food chain.浮游生物处于海洋食物链的最底层。
• The plankton in the sea feeds many kinds of animals. 海的浮游生物成为很多种动物的食物。

6 algae   

n.水藻，海藻

参考例句：

• Most algae live in water.多数藻类生长在水中。
• Algae grow and spread quickly in the lake.湖中水藻滋蔓。

7 grimaces   

n.（表蔑视、厌恶等）面部扭曲，鬼脸( grimace的名词复数 )v.扮鬼相，做鬼脸( grimace的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Mr. Clark winked at the rude child making grimaces. 克拉克先生假装没有看见那个野孩子做鬼脸。 来自辞典例句
• The most ridiculous grimaces were purposely or unconsciously indulged in. 故意或者无心地扮出最滑稽可笑的鬼脸。 来自辞典例句

8 tricky   

adj.狡猾的，奸诈的；(工作等)棘手的，微妙的

参考例句：

• I'm in a rather tricky position.Can you help me out?我的处境很棘手，你能帮我吗？
• He avoided this tricky question and talked in generalities.他回避了这个非常微妙的问题，只做了个笼统的表述。

9 aesthetic   

adj.美学的，审美的，有美感

参考例句：

• My aesthetic standards are quite different from his.我的审美标准与他的大不相同。
• The professor advanced a new aesthetic theory.那位教授提出了新的美学理论。

10 ecosystem   

n.生态系统

参考例句：

• This destroyed the ecosystem of the island.这样破坏了岛上的生态系统。
• We all have an interest in maintaining the integrity of the ecosystem.维持生态系统的完整是我们共同的利益。

11 trout   

n.鳟鱼；鲑鱼(属)

参考例句：

• Thousands of young salmon and trout have been killed by the pollution.成千上万的鲑鱼和鳟鱼的鱼苗因污染而死亡。
• We hooked a trout and had it for breakfast.我们钓了一条鳟鱼，早饭时吃了。

12 utilize   

vt.使用，利用

参考例句：

• The cook will utilize the leftover ham bone to make soup.厨师要用吃剩的猪腿骨做汤。
• You must utilize all available resources.你必须利用一切可以得到的资源。

13 predator   

n.捕食其它动物的动物；捕食者

参考例句：

• The final part of this chapter was devoted to a brief summary of predator species.本章最后部分简要总结了食肉动物。
• Komodo dragon is the largest living lizard and a fearsome predator.科摩多龙是目前存在的最大蜥蜴，它是一种令人恐惧的捕食性动物。

14 chilly   

adj.凉快的，寒冷的

参考例句：

• I feel chilly without a coat.我由于没有穿大衣而感到凉飕飕的。
• I grew chilly when the fire went out.炉火熄灭后，寒气逼人。

15 mimic   

v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人

参考例句：

• A parrot can mimic a person's voice.鹦鹉能学人的声音。
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another.他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

16 translucent   

adj.半透明的；透明的

参考例句：

• The building is roofed entirely with translucent corrugated plastic.这座建筑完全用半透明瓦楞塑料封顶。
• A small difference between them will render the composite translucent.微小的差别,也会使复合材料变成半透明。

17 conclusive   

adj.最后的，结论的；确凿的，消除怀疑的

参考例句：

• They produced some fairly conclusive evidence.他们提供了一些相当确凿的证据。
• Franklin did not believe that the French tests were conclusive.富兰克林不相信这个法国人的实验是结论性的。

18 eradicate   

v.根除，消灭，杜绝

参考例句：

• These insects are very difficult to eradicate.这些昆虫很难根除。
• They are already battling to eradicate illnesses such as malaria and tetanus.他们已经在努力消灭疟疾、破伤风等疾病。

19 definitive   

adj.确切的，权威性的；最后的，决定性的

参考例句：

• This book is the definitive guide to world cuisine.这本书是世界美食的权威指南。
• No one has come up with a definitive answer as to why this should be so.至于为什么该这样，还没有人给出明确的答复。