第2995期:Do birds build their homes like humans?

Animals build their homes to achieve different living goals. Bees build hives to store and protect food, spiders spin webs to catch prey and beavers build dams to create pools. But, as you walk around a town or stroll along a countryside pathway, you may notice some unique homes up on the treetops – nests.

动物建造家园是为了实现不同的生活目标。 蜜蜂建造蜂巢来储存和保护食物，蜘蛛结网来捕捉猎物，海狸建造水坝来形成水池。 但是，当您在城镇中漫步或沿着乡村小路漫步时，您可能会注意到树顶上有一些独特的房屋 - 巢穴。

Like architects, birds carefully engineer their nests before building them. A report named Architectural traditions in the structures built by cooperative weaver birds says that their designs are influenced by those before them. A study released by iScience finds that birds follow a culture that gets passed down. Not the high culture of art, literature and music, but an older process of transmitting traits and skills through generations.

像建筑师一样，鸟类在建造巢穴之前会仔细设计它们。 一份名为《合作织鸟建造的建筑中的建筑传统》的报告称，它们的设计受到了前辈的影响。 iScience 发布的一项研究发现，鸟类遵循一种可以传承下来的文化。 不是艺术、文学和音乐的高雅文化，而是代代相传特征和技能的古老过程。

Bird nest building: visions for the future, says that birds who are first-time builders will often copy familiar individuals, highlighting how important this individual, perhaps the parent, is. Sound familiar? An article in the National Library of Medicine explains how children learn by imitating their caregiver.

鸟巢建造：对未来的愿景 首次建造鸟巢的鸟儿经常会模仿熟悉的个体，这强调了这个个体（也许是父母）的重要性。 听起来很熟悉吗？ 国家医学图书馆的一篇文章解释了孩子如何通过模仿他们的照顾者来学习。

These behaviours, though, can also change in response to pressures of natural selection, a term coined by Charles Darwin in his theory of evolution. Competition is one of the three components of that theory.

不过，这些行为也会因自然选择的压力而发生变化，自然选择是查尔斯·达尔文在其进化论中创造的术语。 竞争是该理论的三个组成部分之一。

And it's not just in the human world where certain property locations are highly desirable. Some species of birds even steal nest locations from others. Studies at the Zoological Society of London have discovered that invasive species will compete with native birds for suitable trees to build their nests in. Experiments published in Science Direct also show that most female birds look for fresh, green nests when choosing their mate. A report from RSPB further adds that in some species of birds, such as wrens, the male will build multiple nests from which the female can choose her favourite and even tidy it up. This tells us that, like humans, the quality of a home, in addition to its location and cleanliness, can influence whether a pair of birds decide to live and start a family there.

不仅仅是在人类世界中，某些房产位置非常令人向往。 有些鸟类甚至会窃取其他鸟类的巢穴位置。 伦敦动物学会的研究发现，入侵物种会与本地鸟类竞争合适的树木来筑巢。《Science Direct》上发表的实验还表明，大多数雌性鸟类在选择配偶时都会寻找新鲜、绿色的巢穴。 皇家鸟类保护协会的一份报告进一步补充说，在某些鸟类中，例如鹪鹩，雄性会建造多个巢，雌性可以从中选择她最喜欢的，甚至清理它。 这告诉我们，像人类一样，房屋的质量，除了位置和清洁度之外，还会影响一对鸟是否决定在那里生活并建立家庭。