巨型雜交風(fēng)滾草在加利福尼亞蔓延

巨型雜交風(fēng)滾草在加利福尼亞蔓延

California has enough to worry about on the invasive species front, thank you very much, but it's now also home to a monster hybrid tumbleweed.

加州在入侵物種方面有足夠的擔(dān)憂，非常感謝，但現(xiàn)在它也是一種巨型雜交風(fēng)滾草的家園。

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have discovered that two large invasive species of tumbleweed have joined together to create a new invasive species of tumbleweed, and it's spreading quickly. They recently took a closer look at this large tumbleweed to see why it was thriving.

加州大學(xué)河濱分校(University of California, Riverside)的研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，兩種大型入侵物種的風(fēng)滾草結(jié)合在一起，形成了一種新的入侵物種——風(fēng)滾草。最近，他們仔細(xì)觀察了這棵巨大的風(fēng)滾草，想知道它為什么會(huì)茁壯成長(zhǎng)。

Now that's a tumbleweed. A truck bed-sized specimen collected by Shana R. Welles in Riverside, California. (Photo: University of California, Riverside)

They found that the species, Salsola ryanii, is much larger than either of its parent plants, which can grow up to 6 feet tall. Findings from their study published in AoB Plants show that the tumbleweed likely grows faster and stronger because it has two pairs of its of its parents' chromosomes.

他們發(fā)現(xiàn)Salsola ryanii這個(gè)物種比它的任何一種母體植物都要大得多，它們可以長(zhǎng)到6英尺高。他們發(fā)表在《AoB Plants》上的研究結(jié)果表明，風(fēng)滾草可能生長(zhǎng)得更快、更強(qiáng)壯，因?yàn)樗袃蓪?duì)它父母的染色體。

Finding the tumbleweed

尋找風(fēng)滾草

The monster tumbleweed was first documented by scientists with the California Department of Food and Agriculture back in 2002 in two areas of the state's Central Valley. The plant, a hybridization of Salsola australis and Salsola tragus, was found to have spread to a third area of the Central Valley in 2009.

2002年，加州食品和農(nóng)業(yè)部的科學(xué)家在加州中央山谷的兩個(gè)地區(qū)首次記錄了這種巨大的風(fēng)滾草。2009年，人們發(fā)現(xiàn)這種植物已經(jīng)蔓延到中央山谷的第三個(gè)地區(qū)。

As UC Riverside explains, the "problematic" Salsola tragus, believed to have the most rapid spread of any introduced species, is found in 48 states. It first arrived on American shores in the late 19th century aboard contaminated shipments of flax seed from Russia.

正如加州大學(xué)河濱分校(UC Riverside)所解釋的那樣，在48個(gè)州發(fā)現(xiàn)了被認(rèn)為是所有外來物種中傳播速度最快的“有問題的”紅腹角雉(Salsola tragus)。它第一次到達(dá)美國(guó)海岸是在19世紀(jì)末，當(dāng)時(shí)是從俄羅斯運(yùn)來的受到污染的亞麻籽。

'The potential to be a problematic invasive'

“潛在的有問題的侵入性”

But back to the unholy union of these two tumbleweeds. In 2012, researchers from UC Riverside found that Salsola ryanii had indeed spread well beyond the confines of the Central Valley to the San Francisco Bay Area and Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles, in just over a decade.

回到這兩株風(fēng)滾草的邪惡結(jié)合上來。2012年，加州大學(xué)河濱分校(UC Riverside)的研究人員發(fā)現(xiàn)，Salsola ryanii的確在短短十多年的時(shí)間里，已經(jīng)遠(yuǎn)遠(yuǎn)超出了中央谷地的范圍，蔓延到了舊金山灣區(qū)(San Francisco Bay Area)和洛杉磯西北部的文圖拉縣(Ventura County)。

Welles notes that average folks won't be able to differentiate Salsola ryanii from the two species of tumbleweed that spawned it. The hybridized plant was identified via DNA testing of plant samples collected at 53 different sites. Of these sites, Salsola ryanii was present at 15 — or 28% — of them, contradicting earlier notions that it would not spread beyond isolated areas of the Central Valley.

威爾斯指出，一般人將無法區(qū)分Salsola ryanii和產(chǎn)生它的兩種風(fēng)滾草。通過對(duì)53個(gè)不同位點(diǎn)的植物標(biāo)本進(jìn)行DNA檢測(cè)，鑒定出雜交植株。在這些遺址中，Salsola ryanii出現(xiàn)在其中的15個(gè)，即28%，這與之前認(rèn)為它不會(huì)擴(kuò)散到中央山谷的孤立地區(qū)的觀點(diǎn)相矛盾。

While Welles concludes her findings in a most ominous manner — "We are not aware of any plant neospecies whose range spontaneously experienced such a dramatic expansion. Salsola ryanii has every indication of being just as invasive as its highly invasive parents" — at least she and her colleagues have a sense of humor about it.

盡管威爾斯以一種極為不祥的方式總結(jié)了她的發(fā)現(xiàn)——“我們不知道有任何一種新物種的范圍能自發(fā)地經(jīng)歷如此劇烈的擴(kuò)張。豬毛菜ryanii種種跡象表明已是一樣入侵其高度侵襲性的父母”——至少她和她的同事有幽默感。