Name: 【環境教育】討厭蟑螂、蚊子？但昆蟲全消失可不是什麼好事！ (What If All Insects Disappeared?)
Uploaded: 2019-10-12T21:01:10.000Z
Duration: 3 min 46 s

情態助動詞 (推斷語氣)

Humans might have built civilizations, but insects own the world.

人類或許建立了文明，但昆蟲才是統治者。

After all, over half of all known species are insects.

畢竟世上超過半數的物種都是昆蟲。

So if they all suddenly vanished, you'd notice.

所以如果它們消失了，你一定會發現。

No more summers of singing cicadas and flickering fireflies.

不再有夏天歌唱的蟬與閃爍的螢火蟲。

No bees to pollinate apple, cherry, peach, or almond trees.

不再有蜜蜂為蘋果、櫻桃、蜜桃或杏仁樹授粉。

A world without insects means a world with empty grocery-store shelves.

沒有昆蟲的世界，代表雜貨店裡將只剩下空蕩蕩的貨架。

But that would be just the beginning of our problems.

Now, it's impossible to say exactly what would go down, but here's a worst-case scenario of what could happen if all the insects disappeared.

我們不可能預測到底會發生什麼事，但以下為如果昆蟲都消失所會發生最糟糕的事。

There are a few insects most people would be happy to see vanish.

有一些昆蟲人們應該很樂意看到它們消失。

They kill hundreds of thousands of people every year by transmitting malaria, West Nile virus, and other diseases.

它們每年因傳播瘧疾、西尼羅病毒等疾病而使成千上萬的人失去生命。

But if they disappeared tomorrow, we might actually miss them.

但如果它們全部消失，我們可能會想念它們。

There are over 3,000 species of mosquitoes on Earth, all of which are food to birds, bats, frogs, and other animals.

地球上有超過三千種的蚊子，它們都是鳥類、蝙蝠、青蛙等生物的食物。

No more mosquitoes means these creatures and the animals that eat them could go hungry.

蚊子若消失，就代表著吃它們的生物要餓肚子了。

The same goes for the dreaded cockroach, a protein-packed meal for birds, rodents, and even humans in some parts of the world.

可怕的蟑螂也一樣，它們是鳥類、囓齒動物甚至是世上某些人類的高蛋白餐點。

If we lost all 4,400 species of roach, entire ecosystems would struggle to survive.

若四千四百種的蟑螂全數消失，整個生態系統將會面臨危機。

Believe it or not, we'd have even worse troubles ahead since we'd face a serious poop problem without one of the world's greatest recyclers, the dung beetle.

信不信由你，若失去世上最好的回收者─糞金龜，我們將面臨嚴重的便便問題。

You see, history has taught us exactly what happens when these critters can't do their job.

糞金龜不做事會如何？歷史已給了人類一個教訓。

Back in 1788, the British introduced cattle to Australia, and these cows pooped a lot.

回到 1788 年，英國引入了乳牛到澳洲，而牠們的糞便量非常大。

Each one poops enough to fill five tennis courts every year.

每隻乳牛每年都可以排泄五個網球場大小的糞便。

But while the dung beetles back in Britain would eat and break down cow poo, the native Australian beetles wouldn't touch the stuff because they evolved to munch only on dry, fibrous marsupial dung.

然而英國的糞金龜會分解並吃掉乳牛糞便，澳洲本土金龜卻不願意碰觸這些糞便，因為它們已經進化到只吃又乾又有纖維的有袋類動物糞便。

By 1960, the cattle had carpeted 500,000 acres of pasture in dung.

到了 1960 年，這些乳牛的糞便已覆蓋了五十萬英畝的牧場土地。

That's enough to cover over half of Rhode Island, and while a little bit of poop is great for fertilizer, this ocean of dung would flood plants with nitrogen, making it impossible for anything to grow.

這些糞便多到可以蓋過半個羅德島，一些糞便或許對施肥很好，但如此龐大數量的糞便，只會讓田地充滿氮氣，導致什麼都長不出來。

So, imagine if all 8,000 species of dung beetle, plus other doo-dining insects, like flies, vanished worldwide.

所以想想，如果所有八千種的糞金龜加上一些會吃糞便的昆蟲，如蒼蠅全都消失會怎樣？

The land would be knee-deep in...you know.

整片土地將會覆蓋在深及膝的...你懂的。

Farmland, forest, and desert would all collapse, and floating throughout would be loads of corpses.

農地、森林與沙漠都會被摧毀，成堆的屍體則會漂浮在糞便上。

You see, most animals won't eat dead bodies.

That's where flesh-eating beetles, aka dermestids, and other corpse-munching insects come in.

這就是食肉甲蟲，也就是皮囊甲蟲出場的時候了。

Over 500 species of these grisly undertakers live worldwide, devouring dead flesh until nothing but bone remains.

超過五百種這種可怕的食肉甲蟲散播於全世界，大啖著屍體直到剩下白骨。

Without them, there would be fewer custodians around to clean up the mess.

少了這些甲蟲，我們可沒多少看守人來清理這團亂。

Sure, there would still be hungry vultures and bacteria around to help, but it wouldn't be enough.

當然，還有飢餓的禿鷹與細菌可以幫忙，但光靠他們是不夠的。

So, that's where we could end up in an insect-less world.

這就是沒有昆蟲的世界會發生的事。

Starving to death while drowning in a sea of poop and corpses.