How Do Fungi Keep the Planet Healthy?
People may think of soil as just dirt, but it is anything but inert.
人们可能认为土壤只是泥土，但它绝不是惰性的。
Beneath your feet, a vast network of mycorrhizal fungi is hard at work, trading minerals with plant roots.
在你的脚下，巨大的菌根真菌网络正在努力工作，与植物根部交换矿物质。
This trading system helps enrich the soil, and it sequesters 13 billion tons of atmospheric carbon dioxide each year — roughly equivalent to one-third of the world’s fossil-fuel emissions.
这一贸易体系有助于肥沃土壤，每年吸收 130 亿吨大气二氧化碳——大约相当于世界化石燃料排放量的三分之一。
Scientists know that these fungi form partnerships with 80% of all plant species on Earth, a relationship that evolved some 450 million years ago.
科学家们知道，这些真菌与地球上 80% 的植物物种形成了伙伴关系，这种关系在大约 4.5 亿年前就已经形成。
What they have not understood is how organisms with no brain or central nervous system can decide whom to trade with, and on what terms.
他们不明白的是，没有大脑或中枢神经系统的生物体如何决定与谁进行交易以及以什么条件进行交易。
Toby Kiers, an evolutionary biologist at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, has spent much of her career making this hidden world visible.
阿姆斯特丹自由大学的进化生物学家托比·基尔斯 (Toby Kiers) 花了她职业生涯的大部分时间来让这个隐藏的世界变得可见。
Drawing on economics and game theory, and using tools that range from fluorescent quantum dots to imaging robots, her lab is probing how fungi and plants conduct their trade.
她的实验室利用经济学和博弈论，并使用从荧光量子点到成像机器人等各种工具，正在探索真菌和植物如何进行贸易。
The work raises new questions about soil, carbon, and even what counts as an individual organism.
这项工作提出了关于土壤、碳，甚至什么算作个体有机体的新问题。
In this episode, Kiers tells co-host Steven Strogatz how these brainless, decentralized organisms can behave strategically — discriminating between better and worse partners and shifting resources across the network to wherever a plant will “pay” more for it — and how she has built a worldwide community of researchers to map the biodiversity of these underground networks and advocate for their protection.
在本集中，基尔斯向联合主持人史蒂文·斯特罗加茨讲述了这些无脑、分散的有机体如何进行战略性行为——区分更好和更差的合作伙伴，并将网络上的资源转移到植物愿意“支付”更多费用的地方——以及她如何建立一个全球研究人员社区来绘制这些地下网络的生物多样性并倡导对其进行保护。
Listen on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , TuneIn or your favorite podcasting app, or you can stream it from Quanta .
在 Apple 播客、Spotify、TuneIn 或您最喜爱的播客应用程序上收听，或者您也可以从 Quanta 进行流式传输。
I’m Steve Strogatz.
我是史蒂夫·斯特罗加茨。
And I’m Janna Levin.
我是詹娜·莱文。
And this is The Joy of Why.
这就是“为什么的喜悦”。
A podcast from Quanta Magazine where we explore some of the biggest unanswered questions in math and science today.
来自《Quanta》杂志的播客，我们探讨了当今数学和科学中一些尚未解答的最大问题。
Hey there, Janna.
嘿，詹娜。
I would love to talk to you about a big question.
我很想和你谈谈一个大问题。
Imagine you’re walking around in the forest or in Central Park.
想象一下您正在森林或中央公园散步。
I know, so what’s under your feet?
我知道，那你脚下是什么？
What are your shoes hitting?
你的鞋子碰到了什么？
I think people would be very surprised that there’s real nature in Central Park.
我认为人们会对中央公园的真实自然感到非常惊讶。
So you got the grass, you got the trees.
所以你得到了草，你得到了树。
Uh, there’s dirt.
呃，有污垢。
We have birds.
我们有鸟。
Let’s focus on the dirt.
让我们把注意力集中在污垢上。
Is dirt our topic today?
污垢是我们今天的主题吗？
Dirt is related to our topic.
污垢与我们的主题相关。
We wanna talk about what’s happening underground in the form of what are called mycorrhizal fungi.
我们想谈谈地下以所谓的菌根真菌的形式发生的事情。
I learned that I’m supposed to say fun-gee.
我知道我应该说“fun-gee”。
I say fun- fung- fun-guy.
我说有趣——有趣——有趣的家伙。
Well, what would I say?
嗯，我该说什么？
I would probably s- I don’t know.
我可能会——我不知道。
Fun-ji?
芬吉？
So now I have to say fun-gee?
所以现在我不得不说有趣的是？
You’re supposed to say fun-gee for the purpose of this episode.
为了这一集的目的，你应该说 fun-gee。
Is that like saying Uranus?
这就像说天王星吗？
[ Laughs ] You should be saying that.
[笑]你应该这么说。
Well, so I spoke to someone recently that changed my perspective about these fungi under our feet and the wood wide web.
嗯，所以我最近和一个人交谈，他改变了我对我们脚下的这些真菌和木质广网的看法。
Not the worldwide web, the wood wide web.
不是万维网，而是木广网。
It’s the mycorrhizal network of these vast networks of fungi that we never notice that are underground, and they’re incredibly important in connecting the roots and supplying nutrients to trees and other plants.
这些巨大的真菌网络的菌根网络是我们从未注意到的，它们位于地下，它们在连接根部和为树木和其他植物提供营养方面非常重要。
Something like 80% to 90% of all the plant species all over the world are getting help from these fungi.
全世界大约 80% 到 90% 的植物物种都得到了这些真菌的帮助。
They’re also helping our atmosphere and our climate.
它们还有助于改善我们的大气层和气候。
They enrich the soil to help farmers and biodiversity, agriculture.
他们肥沃土壤，帮助农民和生物多样性、农业。
They may even contribute to cloud formation through the release of their spores over rainforests.
它们甚至可能通过在雨林上空释放孢子来促进云的形成。
So they may not get much respect, the fungi, but they’re right up there with the animals and plants in mattering to the world.
因此，真菌可能不会受到太多尊重，但它们与动植物一样对世界很重要。
Yeah, ’cause you always hear about the role of bacteria, and so it’s really interesting how fungi could affect the whole ecosystem like that.
是的，因为你总是听说细菌的作用，所以真菌如何影响整个生态系统真的很有趣。
Well, the bacteria are very intimately associated with these fungi.
嗯，细菌与这些真菌密切相关。
and That’s something that we’re going to hear from our guest about.
这就是我们将从客人那里听到的事情。
Toby Kiers is her name.
托比·基尔斯是她的名字。
She is an evolutionary biologist at the Vrije University in Amsterdam, and a recent MacArthur Fellow.
她是阿姆斯特丹自由大学的进化生物学家，也是最近的麦克阿瑟研究员。
So if you’re ready, here we go.
所以，如果您准备好了，我们就开始吧。
Welcome to The Joy of Why , Toby.
欢迎来到《为什么的喜悦》，托比。
Thanks so much about having me.
非常感谢你邀请我。
Well, this is an area that is not familiar to me at all, and I’m dying to hear about it.
嗯，这是一个我根本不熟悉的领域，我很想知道它。
Can you describe what your subject area is first, just in very broad terms?
您能否首先从非常广泛的角度描述一下您的主题领域？
I study the class of organisms called mycorrhizal fungi, and the word mycorrhizal means myco , which means fungus, and rhizal , which means root.
我研究一类叫做菌根真菌的生物体，菌根这个词的意思是 myco ，意思是真菌，而 rhizal ，意思是根。
So these are a class of fungi that form a very intimate association with the vast majority of plants.
因此，这些真菌与绝大多数植物形成了非常密切的联系。
So over 80% of all plant species on Earth form these partnerships, and it’s a very old partnership.
因此，地球上超过 80% 的植物物种形成了这些伙伴关系，而且这是一种非常古老的伙伴关系。
It evolved some 450 million years ago, and was actually really fundamental for plants that were in a wet, aquatic environment to start colonizing land hundreds of millions of years ago.
它在大约 4.5 亿年前进化而来，实际上对于数亿年前处于潮湿水生环境中的植物开始在陆地上定居至关重要。
And since then, it’s been an incredibly important relationship in building ecosystems that we live and survive on today.
从那时起，它就成为构建我们今天赖以生存和生存的生态系统的极其重要的关系。
And I don’t think many people know, but actually the fungus served as a plant root system for even tens of millions of years.
我想很多人都不知道，但事实上，这种真菌作为植物根系的作用已有数千万年之久。
Roots are kind of a new evolutionary innovation, so it’s a very intimate and old partnership between plants and fungi.
根是一种新的进化创新，因此它是植物和真菌之间非常亲密和古老的伙伴关系。
So you’re saying the plants didn’t go to the bother of making their own roots?
所以你是说这些植物不费心去长自己的根？
They were somehow using the fungi to do that for them?
他们以某种方式利用真菌来为他们做到这一点？
Exactly.
确切地。
So, what the plants were doing was they were sending carbon that they were photosynthesizing and taking out of the atmosphere and feeding it to these loose associations, these fungal networks that were in the soil, and in return they were getting resources like phosphorus and nitrogen.
因此，植物所做的就是发送它们进行光合作用并从大气中取出的碳，并将其供给这些松散的组合，这些土壤中的真菌网络，作为回报，它们获得磷和氮等资源。
See, the thing that fungi are very good at is breaking up rocks and digesting these hard-to-access minerals.
你看，真菌最擅长的就是分解岩石并消化这些难以获取的矿物质。
And so they were feeding it to the plants, and in return the plants were giving carbon.
因此，他们将其喂给植物，作为回报，植物提供碳。
And now this partnership really underlies our ecosystems on Earth.
现在，这种伙伴关系确实成为了我们地球生态系统的基础。
Oh, wow.
哦，哇。
I have all kinds of questions.
我有各种各样的问题。
First of all, very dramatic to say breaking up rocks.
首先，非常戏剧化地说破碎岩石。
I don’t, just haven’t thought about it.
我不知道，只是还没想好。
What are they doing to break up rocks?
他们正在做什么来破碎岩石？
Over 80% of all plant species on Earth form these partnerships, and it’s a very old partnership.
地球上超过 80% 的植物物种形成了这种伙伴关系，而且这是一种非常古老的伙伴关系。
Well, the fungi make these beautiful complex networks, and fungi are very good at digesting outside of their bodies and actually partnering with other microbes like bacteria that can help break down rocks.
嗯，真菌构成了这些美丽的复杂网络，真菌非常擅长在体外进行消化，并且实际上与其他微生物（例如细菌）合作，可以帮助分解岩石。
So, some people even say they’re very good at eating rocks on the outside of their bodies and having it dissolve into a form that can then be taken up.
因此，有些人甚至说他们非常擅长吃掉身体外部的岩石，并将其溶解成可以吸收的形式。
And so the fungi then take up these nutrients and move them through these vast networks and feed them to plant roots.
因此，真菌吸收这些营养物质，并将它们通过这些巨大的网络输送到植物根部。
And in return —obviously they don’t do this for free — the plants are feeding them a diet of sugar and lipids like fats.
作为回报——显然它们不是免费这样做的——植物为它们提供糖和脂肪等脂质的饮食。
It’s like the most brilliant diet of sugar and fats that is provided by the plants to the fungi.
这就像植物为真菌提供的最美味的糖和脂肪饮食。
And this partnership is very common.
这种伙伴关系很常见。
It’s almost ubiquitous, I would say, across terrestrial ecosystems.
我想说，它在整个陆地生态系统中几乎无处不在。
And because of this partnership and because plants are constantly feeding carbon down to these networks, we actually call it one of Earth’s circulatory systems.
由于这种伙伴关系，并且由于植物不断向这些网络提供碳，我们实际上将其称为地球的循环系统之一。
Oh, nice.
哦，不错。
So, network is a word that everybody is using these days.
所以，网络是现在每个人都在使用的一个词。
We hear about the internet.
我们听说过互联网。
We know we have our own circulatory system in our body, networks of blood vessels.
我们知道我们的身体有自己的循环系统，即血管网络。
But so when you talk about a mycorrhizal fungal network, what should I picture?
但是，当你谈论菌根真菌网络时，我应该想象什么？
Exactly.
确切地。
And it’s very clear.
这非常清楚。
One thing I really want people to understand is that plants are not fungi , and fungi are not plants, and they’re very different kingdoms of life.
我真正希望人们明白的一件事是，植物不是真菌，真菌也不是植物，它们是非常不同的生命王国。
So when you have a plant root and you were to pull it up from the ground, that’s a beautiful image, you would not quite be able to see these threads that are hanging from the root.
所以当你有一个植物的根，你要把它从地上拔起来时，这是一个美丽的图像，你不太可能看到这些从根部垂下来的线。
They’re thinner than the hairs on my head, just a few microns across.
它们比我头上的头发还细，只有几微米宽。
And the type that we really concentrate on are called arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, and we can get into where that name comes from.
我们真正关注的类型被称为丛枝菌根真菌，我们可以了解这个名字的来源。
But these particular networks are like an open-pipe system.
但这些特定的网络就像一个开放的管道系统。
They’re literally like a tube.
它们实际上就像一根管子。
And in some senses, people think they’re the largest cells on Earth because they don’t have the septa that break it up into individual compartments.
从某种意义上说，人们认为它们是地球上最大的细胞，因为它们没有将细胞分成单独隔室的隔膜。
And so a lot of what we do in the lab is growing these networks across sort of a transparent soil almost, like a way that you can see the networks and use microscopy to follow these networks and understand how they navigate space.
因此，我们在实验室所做的很多工作都是在几乎透明的土壤上生长这些网络，就像你可以看到这些网络并使用显微镜来跟踪这些网络并了解它们如何在空间中导航一样。
We have developed together with biophysicists at the Biophysics Institute called AMOLF here in Amsterdam, these imaging robots that allow us to track individual nodes across these networks.
我们与阿姆斯特丹生物物理学研究所 AMOLF 的生物物理学家共同开发了这些成像机器人，使我们能够跟踪这些网络中的各个节点。
So in any given experiment, we’re tracking about half a million of these nodes, these fungal decisions whether to go left or right or make a bridge when they fuse together.
因此，在任何给定的实验中，我们都会跟踪大约 50 万个这样的节点，这些节点在它们融合在一起时决定向左还是向右，还是建立一座桥梁。
And they actually make a beautiful supply chain because what you’re imagining —and I want you to really close your eyes and picture this — is that the plant is pouring carbon down into this root system, and the carbon, which now we can label with a fluorescent label, so we can actually watch it travel through this open-pipe system all the way down to the tips where the fungi use the carbon to keep building their network.
它们实际上形成了一个美丽的供应链，因为你所想象的——我希望你闭上眼睛想象一下——植物正在将碳倒入这个根系，而碳，现在我们可以用荧光标签来标记，所以我们实际上可以看到它穿过这个开放的管道系统，一直到真菌利用碳来继续构建它们的网络的尖端。
Now, as they’re building that network, they’re collecting the phosphorus and the nitrogen in the water that they’re moving in an opposite direction back to the root system.
现在，当他们建立这个网络时，他们正在收集水中的磷和氮，并以相反的方向返回到根系。
Now, one of the most fascinating things about this symbiosis is that this is an open-pipe system, yet it has flows moving in two directions at the same time.
现在，这种共生最令人着迷的事情之一是，这是一个开放管道系统，但它的流量同时在两个方向上移动。
Roots are kind of a new evolutionary innovation, so it’s a very intimate and old partnership between plants and fungi.
根是一种新的进化创新，因此它是植物和真菌之间非常亲密和古老的伙伴关系。
So it’s like a river going north and south at the same time.
所以它就像一条同时向北和向南流动的河流。
So when you say picture it, it’s actually one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen.
所以当你说想象它时，它实际上是我见过的最美丽的东西之一。
And the biophysicists when they saw it for the first time, they said, “ This just can’t be true.
当生物物理学家第一次看到它时，他们说：“这不可能是真的。
How do they do it?”
他们是怎么做到的？
This is amazing.
这太棒了。
This is off topic, but I’m just gonna throw it out there but when I was a kid in high school, I had a science teacher who showed me how to do an experiment that Galileo had described in the 1600s, where Galileo said he took a little jug of water and another jug of wine, and then he could connect these two reservoirs, the wine on the bottom and the water on the top.
这是题外话，但我只是想把它扔在那里，但当我还是个高中生的时候，我有一位科学老师向我展示了如何做伽利略在 1600 年代描述的一个实验，伽利略说他拿了一小壶水和另一壶酒，然后他可以连接这两个水库，酒在底部，水在顶部。
And there’s this thin vertical tube connecting them.
有一根细细的垂直管连接它们。
Galileo said that the wine will rise through the tube and the water will flow down through the tube, and they will pass through without mixing and they will trade places.
伽利略说，酒会通过管子上升，水会通过管子向下流，它们会通过而不混合，并且交换位置。
And I actually did this experiment.
我实际上做了这个实验。
And it worked.
它奏效了。
They didn’t mix in the tube.
它们没有在管中混合。
My teacher took a photograph of it.
我的老师给它拍了一张照片。
It was published in a history of science magazine when I was 13 years old.
当我13岁时，它发表在一本科学史杂志上。
The, the point being that a historian of science said Galileo was fudging and he had made up this experiment because we all know that when two things pass through the same tube, they would mix.
关键是，一位科学史家说伽利略在捏造，他编造了这个实验，因为我们都知道，当两种东西通过同一个管子时，它们会混合。
You’re telling me a story about two different flows through a whole network of tubes.
你给我讲了一个关于整个管道网络中两种不同流动的故事。
Am I on the right track thinking like this?
我这样想是否正确？
You are kind of on the right track, and it’s something that is a big open question in our lab right now, so it’s something we’re constantly thinking about.
你走在正确的轨道上，这是我们实验室现在一个很大的悬而未决的问题，所以这是我们不断思考的事情。
I think I go to bed thinking about it and wake up thinking about it.
我想我睡觉时会思考这个问题，醒来时也会思考这个问题。
But what you have to remember is that the diet that the plants give the fungi is full of fat, and fat doesn’t mix very well with water.
但你必须记住的是，植物给予真菌的食物富含脂肪，而脂肪与水不能很好地混合。
And so there are these things called condensates, which are these big lipid droplets inside the network.
因此，有一些称为冷凝物的东西，它们是网络内的大脂滴。
And what we think is happening is that there’s these beautiful molecular motors that are inside the network that actually drag the lipids, the fats, to the tip of the network so the fungus can use it to grow.
我们认为正在发生的事情是，网络内部有这些美丽的分子马达，它们实际上将脂质、脂肪拖到网络的顶端，这样真菌就可以利用它来生长。
And we think that’s what’s happening, is that when you pull these lipids on these…
我们认为这就是正在发生的事情，当你将这些脂质拉到这些上时……
So a molecular motor, you can think of it as, a little railroad track that has, one of those cars on it that people move up and down and up and down to move forward.
因此，分子发动机，您可以将其视为一条小铁轨，上面有一辆汽车，人们可以上下移动以向前移动。
That’s what a, a molecular motor looks like.
这就是分子马达的样子。
And you can see this in the lab.
您可以在实验室中看到这一点。
It’s so beautiful to watch the lipids move inside on these tracks.
看着脂质在这些轨道上移动真是太美妙了。
But it’s not the only thing that’s happening, is that these, um, by the lipids in the molecular motors pulling the fluid, it actually creates a pressure.
但这并不是唯一发生的事情，这些，嗯，通过分子马达中的脂质拉动液体，它实际上产生了压力。
And so if you’re pulling one way and you’re- have a, an end that’s plugged up, it forces the liquid to go the other way because of pressure.
因此，如果你向一个方向拉动，而你的一端被堵塞了，它就会因为压力而迫使液体流向另一个方向。
And so the fungus actually, we think, is opening and closing these beautiful aquaporins, these little pores that help regulate how much water is going in and out, and that’s helping drive pressure inside, in the network.
因此，我们认为，真菌实际上正在打开和关闭这些美丽的水通道蛋白，这些小孔有助于调节进出的水量，这有助于驱动网络内部的压力。
And so it’s a combination of the active molecular motors pulling, but then these very fast flows that are created by the pressure inside the cell.
因此，它是活跃的分子马达拉动和细胞内压力产生的非常快的流动的组合。
And as a result, you get these very complex patterns inside.
结果，你在里面得到了这些非常复杂的模式。
And because we can label the carbon, it’s this sort of beautiful fluorescent, almost looks like a lava lamp moving through a very thin liquid, a very thin tube, all the way up to the tip and back.
因为我们可以对碳进行标记，所以它是一种美丽的荧光灯，几乎看起来像熔岩灯在非常薄的液体中移动，非常薄的管子，一直到尖端和背部。
And it’s mesmerizing.
这令人着迷。
[ Laughs ] Well, I’m sure anyone listening to this can hear how excited you are by your own subject, and this is thrilling and infectious to listen to.
[笑]嗯，我相信任何听这个的人都能听出你对自己的主题有多兴奋，这听起来令人兴奋且富有感染力。
But I wonder though if anyone is not getting it, can we just pan back in our story?
但我想知道如果有人不明白，我们可以回顾一下我们的故事吗？
Why should the average citizen care about these underground networks that they probably didn’t even know existed?
为什么普通公民应该关心这些他们可能甚至不知道存在的地下网络？
Well, these networks, they really can support us in tackling some of the biggest challenges facing humanity today.
嗯，这些网络确实可以支持我们应对当今人类面临的一些最大挑战。
I mean, they are incredibly important in regulating our climate.
我的意思是，它们对于调节我们的气候非常重要。
And that’s a really new field.
这是一个非常新的领域。
So some work that we published in 2023 found that these mycorrhizal networks are processing about 13 billion tons of CO2 every year.
因此，我们在 2023 年发表的一些研究发现，这些菌根网络每年处理约 130 亿吨二氧化碳。
So that’s like roughly a third of emissions from fossil fuels.
因此，这大约相当于化石燃料排放量的三分之一。
So to say that another way, plants are taking up all of this carbon from our atmosphere and then allocating about thirteen billion tons of that to networks every year.
换句话说，植物从大气中吸收了所有碳，然后每年将其中约 130 亿吨分配给网络。
So they really help regulate our climate.
所以它们确实有助于调节我们的气候。
And once that carbon is down in the soil, the networks bring it down deep where it can stay and not be released so much.
一旦碳进入土壤，网络就会将其深入到可以停留的地方，而不会释放太多。
So, of course, the fungi are living, so they respire, so they lose some of that carbon, but they also create these very sticky, beautiful compounds that are very hard to break down, and so that helps keep carbon underground.
当然，真菌是有生命的，所以它们会进行呼吸，所以它们会失去一些碳，但它们也会产生这些非常粘稠、美丽的化合物，这些化合物很难分解，这有助于将碳保留在地下。
You can think of them as like a scaffolding that sort of holds the soil together.
您可以将它们视为将土壤固定在一起的脚手架。
If they weren’t there, the soil would just erode and disappear.
如果它们不在那里，土壤就会被侵蚀并消失。
The thing that fungi are very good at is breaking up rocks and digesting these hard-to-access minerals.
真菌非常擅长分解岩石并消化这些难以获取的矿物质。
And so they were feeding it to the plants, and in return the plants were giving carbon.
因此，他们将其喂给植物，作为回报，植物提供碳。
So, not only are they important in regulating our climate, but they also help with our ability to grow food.
因此，它们不仅对调节气候很重要，而且还有助于提高我们种植粮食的能力。
So, as I was saying, the plants really depend on these networks for their phosphorus uptake, for their nitrogen, for their water.
因此，正如我所说，植物实际上依赖于这些网络来吸收磷、氮和水。
Up to 80% of a plant’s phosphorus first passes through a fungal network.
植物中高达 80% 的磷首先通过真菌网络。
So, what that means is even the DNA, backbone, the phosphorus backbone of our own DNA first passed through a fungal network.
所以，这意味着甚至我们自己 DNA 的 DNA、主链、磷主链也首先通过了真菌网络。
Like we are made up of phosphorus that passed through fungi.
就像我们是由通过真菌的磷组成的一样。
It’s so beautiful.
太漂亮了。
And they also, they really regulate water availability.
他们还确实调节了水资源的供应。
New work has shown that they’re very good at breaking down pollutants and heavy metals.
新的研究表明它们非常擅长分解污染物和重金属。
And so what we worry about is that people are not paying attention to these networks, and if we keep destroying them there’s chances for more increased global warming, accelerating biodiversity loss, and really disrupting the Earth’s nutrient cycles.
因此，我们担心的是，人们没有关注这些网络，如果我们继续破坏它们，就有可能进一步加剧全球变暖，加速生物多样性丧失，并真正扰乱地球的营养循环。
Mmmm.
嗯。
Okay, very convincing answer.
好的，很有说服力的答案。
You’ve really made the case that we should care about them even though we may not be aware or able to see them.
你确实证明了我们应该关心它们，即使我们可能不知道或无法看到它们。
I think that’s the most important part is that people tend to assume that soils are sort of dead or inert.
我认为最重要的是人们倾向于认为土壤是死的或惰性的。
This is likely because, like, soil life has been largely invisible.
这可能是因为土壤生命在很大程度上是不可见的。
And so a lot of what we do is trying to make that invisible life visible, and so that people actually start to see and connect with the underground, kind of flip their perspective and think about underground ecosystems as places where life begins.
因此，我们所做的很多事情就是试图让那些看不见的生命变得可见，这样人们就能真正开始看到地下并与地下建立联系，有点翻转他们的观点，将地下生态系统视为生命开始的地方。
Let’s talk about that a little bit.
我们来谈谈这个吧。
I think that many of our listeners will already get this point, but I have to admit, it was relatively late in my life that I started to appreciate that dirt is not just dirt, that dirt is alive in all kinds of ways, and that by thinking about that, we can understand, like, why does a farmer rotate their crops or something like that.
我认为我们的许多听众已经明白了这一点，但我必须承认，在我生命中相对较晚的时候，我开始意识到污垢不仅仅是污垢，污垢以各种方式都是有生命的，通过思考这一点，我们可以理解，比如，为什么农民要轮作作物或类似的东西。
I mean, this isn’t exactly what we’re talking about here, but just help us understand what it means when someone says the soil is a living thing.
我的意思是，这不完全是我们在这里讨论的内容，但只是帮助我们理解当有人说土壤是有生命的东西时意味着什么。
We are made up of phosphorus that passed through fungi.
我们是由通过真菌的磷组成的。
So when we think about soils, one of the most surprising statistics that most people haven’t heard is that 59% of all species on Earth live underground.
因此，当我们想到土壤时，大多数人都没有听说过的最令人惊讶的统计数据之一是，地球上 59% 的物种生活在地下。
And so if even if we’re serious about just protecting biodiversity, this has to include life underground.
因此，即使我们认真地保护生物多样性，也必须包括地下生命。
One of the problems I think, is just trying to make people curious, right?
我认为问题之一就是试图让人们好奇，对吗？
Trying to understand, so that they step on the Earth and they start thinking about all of the interactions that are happening right under their feet.
尝试去理解，以便他们踏上地球并开始思考脚下发生的所有相互作用。
I mean, without healthy soils, ecosystems collapse, lands degrade.
我的意思是，如果没有健康的土壤，生态系统就会崩溃，土地就会退化。
There’s this beautiful balance of air and water and climate that really can’t be disrupted, and I think farmers are really good at knowing about that balance in many ways and trying to generate the soil, regenerate the soil, rather than just having it be something that’s constantly being extracted from.
空气、水和气候之间存在着这种美丽的平衡，确实无法被破坏，我认为农民非常擅长以多种方式了解这种平衡，并努力创造土壤，使土壤再生，而不仅仅是让它成为不断被提取的东西。
Mmm-hmmm.
嗯嗯。
Okay, so let’s zoom in a little bit on some of the things that you already mentioned.
好的，让我们稍微关注一下您已经提到的一些事情。
I mean, you used the word symbiosis earlier, that the plants are providing carbon flows down to the fungi, the fungi are trading nitrogen and phosphorus back up.
我的意思是，您之前使用了共生这个词，即植物向真菌提供碳流，真菌则将氮和磷进行交换。
It all sounds like this is the language of markets and trading.
听起来这就是市场和交易的语言。
It sounds like economics, and that’s one of the things that you’re known for is helping us see things through this market perspective.
这听起来像经济学，而您众所周知的事情之一就是帮助我们从市场角度看待事物。
So tell us about that.
请告诉我们这一点。
I mean, is it just like a cooperative market where there’s a division of labor — you do something I can’t do, so I do something you can’t do, and we’re both happy?
我的意思是，是不是就像一个合作市场，有分工——你做我做不到的事情，我做你做不到的事情，我们都高兴？
Or is there any tension in this sort of system?
或者说这种制度有什么压力吗？
These are all brilliant questions and ones that I’ve been asking myself for many decades now.
这些都是很棒的问题，也是我几十年来一直在问自己的问题。
And this idea of using an economic lens, it can really help us understand these trade dynamics.
这种使用经济视角的想法确实可以帮助我们了解这些贸易动态。
Now trade works because organisms, they all need slightly different resources, and access to those resources, they bring benefits.
现在贸易之所以有效，是因为生物体都需要略有不同的资源，而获得这些资源会带来好处。
So for particular behaviors to evolve, it has to increase a benefit.
因此，要发展特定行为，就必须增加收益。
What is nice about studying these trade patterns is that it allows organisms access to very different materials that they couldn’t get themselves.
研究这些贸易模式的好处在于，它允许生物体获得它们自己无法获得的非常不同的材料。
But there’s a tension, and you used that word, and I think the tension here is quite interesting because when we take an example like plants and their fungi, it’s expensive for plants to photosynthesize and to feed that carbon, and it’s expensive for the fungi to go out and collect these resources.
但是有一种紧张，你用了这个词，我认为这里的紧张非常有趣，因为当我们以植物及其真菌为例时，植物进行光合作用和提供碳的成本很高，而真菌出去收集这些资源的成本也很高。
And so we study it as sort of an underground economy and trying to understand under what conditions do certain trade behaviors evolve?
因此，我们将其作为一种地下经济来研究，并试图了解某些贸易行为是在什么条件下演变的？
What makes fungi collect resources and give them to a certain plant and vice versa?
是什么让真菌收集资源并将其提供给某种植物，反之亦然？
What makes a plant give more carbon to one fungal network than the other?
是什么让植物为一个真菌网络提供比另一个真菌网络更多的碳？
And we set up these kinds of experiments in the lab, these very manipulative experiments, and then we watch to see what both partners do.
我们在实验室里进行了这些实验，这些实验非常具有操作性，然后我们观察合作伙伴做了什么。
I’m sorry, I’m chuckling because the word “manipulative” you use in such a charmingly double entendre sense there.
抱歉，我笑了，因为你用的“操纵”这个词具有如此迷人的双关语含义。
Give us an example of a manipulative strategy or something that you figured out.
给我们一个操纵策略的例子或者你想出的东西。
Maybe, I know you have lots of them, but give me some of your greatest hits.
也许，我知道你有很多这样的歌曲，但请给我一些你最热门的歌曲。
I think one of the most basic ones, we just wanted to see if plants could discriminate between very cooperative and less cooperative fungal strains.
我认为最基本的之一，我们只是想看看植物是否能够区分非常合作和不太合作的真菌菌株。
And so, the experiments that we do often take place in a Petri plate.
因此，我们所做的实验经常在培养皿中进行。
So they’re very lab-based, and we are the first to admit that what’s happening out in nature is obviously very different and influenced by so many other organisms.
所以它们是非常基于实验室的，我们是第一个承认自然界中发生的事情显然非常不同并且受到许多其他生物体影响的人。
But this lab setup really allows us to have very precise control over conditions.
但这个实验室设置确实使我们能够非常精确地控制条件。
And so we would do experiments, for example, imagine a plate, a circle that’s broken into three compartments, and one of those compartments has a root system.
所以我们会做实验，例如，想象一个盘子，一个分成三个隔室的圆圈，其中一个隔室有一个根系统。
Then we can add different fungi to either side of the root compartment, and we can add more resources, let’s say, on one compartment than the other, and then actually track how much carbon goes to those different fungal compartments.
然后我们可以在根室的任一侧添加不同的真菌，并且我们可以在一个室中添加比另一个室更多的资源，然后实际跟踪有多少碳进入这些不同的真菌室。
Those fungal compartments, sometimes we call it fungal arenas because that’s where all the action happens.
这些真菌区室，有时我们称之为真菌竞技场，因为那是所有动作发生的地方。
And we did this, and we found that plants indeed were able to discriminate between effective and less effective strains, and consistently gave more carbon, more fats and sugars to the fungi that were giving more phosphorus in return.
我们这样做了，我们发现植物确实能够区分有效和不太有效的菌株，并持续为真菌提供更多的碳、更多的脂肪和糖，而真菌则提供更多的磷作为回报。
Now, that almost wasn’t that surprising, but then we did the reverse experiment where we had two root systems that were connected by a single fungal network, and the root systems gave less carbon or more carbon.
现在，这几乎并不令人惊讶，但后来我们做了相反的实验，我们有两个根系通过单个真菌网络连接，根系提供更少的碳或更多的碳。
And we found again that the fungi were very good at discriminating, and they were giving more phosphorus to the plants that gave more carbon.
我们再次发现真菌非常善于区分，它们向植物提供更多的磷，从而提供更多的碳。
And so what you have there is this sort of reciprocal exploitation in a sense, where both partners are very good at discriminating and choosing the correct partner.
因此，从某种意义上说，这是一种相互剥削，双方都非常擅长辨别和选择正确的合作伙伴。
Huh.
呵呵。
So when you describe an experiment where you sort of stack the deck by making it possible for one side of the arena to provide more of the goodies, and then the fungi reciprocate by favoring that one and providing more in return.
因此，当你描述一个实验时，你通过让竞技场的一侧有可能提供更多的好东西来堆叠甲板，然后真菌通过支持这一侧并提供更多的回报来回报。
That sounds very familiar to the way that people operate.
这对于人们的操作方式来说听起来非常熟悉。
Exactly.
确切地。
It’s very familiar.
很熟悉。
And that’s sort of what has evolved over these hundreds of millions of years, is just that ability to discriminate between a good partner and a bad partner.
这就是几亿年来进化出来的，就是区分好伴侣和坏伴侣的能力。
And again, I don’t think that’s so surprising, but I think this is where this idea of using economics came in, was that if you have this discrimination, how complicated can these partnerships get?
再说一次，我认为这并不令人惊讶，但我认为这就是利用经济学的想法出现的地方，如果你有这种歧视，这些伙伴关系会变得多么复杂？
Can you have multiple partners?
可以有多个合作伙伴吗？
And, how good are plants at discriminating against multiple different strains simultaneously?
而且，植物同时区分多种不同菌株的能力如何？
If it’s not just two, can you up the number and vice versa?
如果不是只有两个，你可以增加数量，反之亦然吗？
And then really trying to understand the patterns inside these exchanges.
然后真正尝试了解这些交流内部的模式。
One of the most surprising statistics is that 59% of all species on Earth live underground.
最令人惊讶的统计数据之一是地球上 59% 的物种生活在地下。
If we’re serious about protecting biodiversity, this has to include life underground.
如果我们认真保护生物多样性，就必须包括地下生命。
Some of the most interesting strategies that we have documented over the years is, you know, for example, a fungus will avoid sending lots of phosphorus to plants growing in the shade.
多年来我们记录的一些最有趣的策略是，例如，真菌会避免向生长在阴凉处的植物输送大量磷。
So if we manipulate even in whole plants and cover plants in the shade, the fungus can tell and provide less phosphorus.
因此，如果我们甚至对整株植物进行操作并将植物覆盖在阴凉处，真菌就能识别并提供更少的磷。
It will trade differently depending on how many fungal competitors are present, which is really interesting.
根据真菌竞争对手的数量，它的交易方式会有所不同，这非常有趣。
Fungi can artificially inflate the price by hoarding the phosphorus in their network and then driving the price of it, waiting basically until the plant is able to provide more carbon in return.
真菌可以通过在其网络中囤积磷来人为地抬高价格，然后推高其价格，基本上等到植物能够提供更多的碳作为回报。
We had this incredible experiment where we used something called quantum dots, which are these, like, bright fluorescent nanoparticles that you can attach to phosphorus to really see, okay, how do the fungi move their phosphorus around these very complex networks?
我们进行了这个令人难以置信的实验，我们使用了一种叫做量子点的东西，这些东西就像明亮的荧光纳米粒子，你可以将其附着在磷上，以便真正看到真菌如何在这些非常复杂的网络中移动它们的磷？
And we set up an experiment that, I won’t go into all of the details, but basically what we documented was that the fungus was taking up phosphorus on a very rich side of the network and moving it actively all the way to the other side of the network where the plant was willing to pay more.
我们建立了一个实验，我不会详细介绍所有细节，但基本上我们记录的是真菌在网络非常丰富的一侧吸收磷，并将其积极地一直转移到植物愿意支付更多费用的网络另一侧。
So actively moving resources to get a higher price.
因此积极转移资源以获得更高的价格。
It’s really unbelievable.
真是难以置信。
The idea that like a poor plant that happens to be shaded, so it’s not able to get the amount of sunlight it would like.
这个想法就像一棵可怜的植物碰巧被遮荫，所以它无法获得它想要的阳光量。
It’s not happy about being shaded, right?
它不高兴被遮蔽，对吗？
This thing is having trouble providing the carbon because of its sad condition, and it ends up getting punished to boot by the fungi.
由于它的状况不佳，它在提供碳方面遇到了困难，最终它受到了真菌的惩罚。
Did I hear that right?
我没听错吧？
Yeah, so we have to be careful about the word “punished” right.
是的，所以我们必须小心“惩罚”这个词。
I shouldn’t talk like that, right?
我不应该这样说话，对吗？
No, not at all.
不，一点也不。
You can go ahead.
你可以继续。
But I think discriminate because that’s a choice, so it’s not like it’s actively punishing it.
但我认为歧视是因为这是一种选择，所以它并不是在积极惩罚它。
Because there is active punishment in nature as well, and that actually comes at a cost to the organism.
因为自然界中也存在积极的惩罚，而这实际上是以有机体付出代价的。
But this is all happening in nature.
但这一切都发生在大自然中。
It’s just a lot more complex, and so we make it very simplified in the laboratory so we can really see these patterns emerge.
它只是要复杂得多，所以我们在实验室中将其非常简化，这样我们就可以真正看到这些模式的出现。
But yes, I think what it teaches us is just that these organisms are incredibly sensitive to their environment, and they have evolved all kinds of strategies to maximize this resource exchange.
但是，是的，我认为它告诉我们的是，这些生物体对其环境非常敏感，并且它们已经进化出各种策略来最大化这种资源交换。
There’s even plants that don’t photosynthesize at all.
甚至有些植物根本不进行光合作用。
This is incredible.
这太不可思议了。
There’s types of orchids that make no photosynthetic body.
有些兰花不产生光合体。
They still bloom above ground and make a flower, but they actually tap into the mycorrhizal network, and they steal the carbon.
它们仍然在地面上开花并形成花朵，但它们实际上利用了菌根网络，并窃取了碳。
So it’s like a reverse.
所以这就像一个相反的情况。
So they’re cheating the fungi and pulling the carbon out so that they don’t have to waste time photosynthesizing.
因此，它们欺骗了真菌，将碳排出体外，这样它们就不必浪费时间进行光合作用。
So, there’s so many strategies like this in nature, and I think it’s our job to kind of understand and have the patience to document them.
因此，自然界中有很多这样的策略，我认为我们的工作就是理解并耐心地记录它们。
Wow.
哇。
So you want to anthropomorphize here, of course, but it is fascinating that this can be done mindlessly, to some extent.
当然，你想在这里进行拟人化，但令人着迷的是，在某种程度上，这可以不假思索地完成。
I mean, nobody really is going to have a good argument that fungi are consciously making decisions.
我的意思是，没有人真正能充分论证真菌是有意识地做出决定。
But there’s clearly something on the way towards that.
但显然有一些事情正在朝着这个方向发展。
There’s a tension, and then there’s response.
有一种紧张，然后就有回应。
I mean, it’s, it’s quite remarkable.
我的意思是，这非常了不起。
It is.
这是。
For instance, the price gouging.
比如哄抬物价。
The price gouging, that’s crazy.
哄抬物价，太疯狂了。
You know, you don’t need a mind or be sinister or anything to realize…
你知道，你不需要有头脑，也不需要阴险或任何东西来实现……
Not realize.
没有意识到。
It’s so, so hard to talk about this.
谈论这个真是太难了。
To behave in a way that is consistent with what we would call price gouging.
其行为方式与我们所说的价格欺诈行为一致。
It’s evolutionarily apparently selected in this case, in this particular interaction, to act like that.
在这种情况下，在这种特定的相互作用中，它显然是进化选择的，以做出那样的行为。
I mean, it seems that there’s a suggestion that this economic way of speaking, in terms of marketplace behaviors, is a metaphor, but maybe it’s not just a metaphor.
我的意思是，似乎有人认为，就市场行为而言，这种经济的说话方式是一种隐喻，但也许它不仅仅是一个隐喻。
I mean, we do have these complex networks, human networks, and they play out in precisely this way.
我的意思是，我们确实有这些复杂的网络，人类网络，它们正是以这种方式发挥作用。
The marketplace itself doesn’t have a mind.
市场本身没有思想。
It’s true the individual players do, but, you know, maybe there’s more than just a kind of metaphor here.
个别球员确实如此，但是，你知道，也许这里不仅仅是一种隐喻。
Well, we may overestimate the importance of our consciousness.
好吧，我们可能高估了我们意识的重要性。
You know, because we happen to have that, we think it’s all about that.
你知道，因为我们碰巧有这样的情况，所以我们认为这就是全部。
But in fact, competition and cooperation occur all throughout the world of life at every scale, you know?
但事实上，竞争与合作存在于生活的各个层面，你知道吗？
So it’s not really about consciousness apparently.
所以这显然与意识无关。
Well, it’s so interesting too because I appreciate her discipline in not falling into too much anthropomorphizing, right?
嗯，这也很有趣，因为我很欣赏她的自律，没有陷入太多的拟人化，对吧？
But at the same time, we do know of complex networks where thinking does emerge and consciousness does emerge, and presumably they’re just complex networks that are based on the same kinds of mechanics, you know, the same kinds of elementary mechanics.
但与此同时，我们确实知道复杂的网络，其中思维确实出现，意识确实出现，并且大概它们只是基于相同类型的力学的复杂网络，你知道，相同类型的基本力学。
So, at some stage, complex networks make the transition.
因此，在某个阶段，复杂的网络会发生转变。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Yeah, and so maybe you know, is it a continuum from what we wanna think of as totally unconscious to, as you say, there is some kind of place where if it’s a complex network of neurons, it becomes conscious.
是的，所以也许你知道，它是一个连续体，从我们想要的完全无意识到，正如你所说，在某种地方，如果它是一个复杂的神经元网络，它就会变得有意识。
Well, that’s the kind of thing we’re gonna explore: How does this marketplace-like action really take place without any sort of central nervous system?
好吧，这就是我们要探索的事情：在没有任何中枢神经系统的情况下，这种类似市场的行为是如何真正发生的？
And we’ll be hearing about that right after the break.
我们将在休息后立即听到这个消息。
Welcome back to The Joy of Why.
欢迎回到《为什么的喜悦》。
We’ve been learning about mycorrhizal networks with evolutionary biologist Toby Kiers.
我们一直在和进化生物学家托比·基尔斯一起学习菌根网络。
So help us understand how to think about what strategies or discrimination mean in entities that don’t have brains, that don’t have language.
因此，请帮助我们理解如何思考策略或歧视对于没有大脑、没有语言的实体意味着什么。
How can you negotiate without a brain?
没有大脑怎么能谈判呢？
Sometimes I describe it as being like a primatologist.
有时我形容它就像一个灵长类动物学家。
There’s so much observation involved because you’re just watching these behaviors in real time.
这涉及到很多观察，因为你只是实时观察这些行为。
Yeah.
是的。
There are so many organisms in nature that negotiate without a central nervous system, and they’re so understudied.
自然界中有很多生物体无需中枢神经系统就可以进行谈判，但人们对它们的研究却很少。
And so we have a real plea in trying to always pull people from other fields that sort of study decentralized decision-making to start studying fungi, because there’s so much focus on organisms with brains, and that’s the only way to make decisions.
因此，我们真诚地呼吁，总是试图吸引其他领域的人们来研究分散决策，开始研究真菌，因为人们非常关注有大脑的生物体，而这是做出决策的唯一方法。
But actually, fungi are very good at processing information.
但实际上，真菌非常擅长处理信息。
They process information all across their networks, and a lot of our work is trying to understand exactly how they do that.
他们通过网络处理信息，我们的很多工作就是试图准确理解他们是如何做到这一点的。
Is it electrical signaling?
是电信号吗？
Is it the flows inside that act as a calculator?
是内部的流动起到了计算器的作用吗？
There’s lots of ways that we’re — hypotheses that we’re testing.
我们正在测试很多方法——假设。
They definitely process information, and so whether you wanna use the word intelligence is a big debate, one that I do feel comfortable saying that they are intelligent creatures, depending on how you define intelligence.
他们肯定会处理信息，所以你是否想使用“智力”这个词是一个很大的争论，我确实觉得他们是聪明的生物，这取决于你如何定义智力。
But the words that I tend to use are information processing, right?
但我更喜欢用的词是信息处理，对吗？
Because that makes it really clear that they’re able to be sensitive to their environment and adapt and make decisions over the life of their organism, right?
因为这非常清楚地表明它们能够对环境敏感并在有机体的生命周期中适应并做出决定，对吗？
So not even over evolutionary time, but adapt behaviors to really optimize trade in those moments.
因此，即使在进化过程中，也不要改变行为，以真正优化那些时刻的贸易。
And so, of course, there’s always these big hazards in drawing parallels between human, humans and microbes, especially because the language is interpreted in so many different ways by different people.
因此，当然，在人类、人类和微生物之间进行比较总是存在很大的危险，特别是因为不同的人以多种不同的方式解释语言。
words like “decision” and “no”, they can give the impression that a non-cognitive organism shows intent.
像“决定”和“不”这样的词，它们会给人一种非认知有机体表现出意图的印象。
But what we’re really talking about is strategies that are actually built into the DNA of the organism, and that those strategies allow the organism to live in a world and behave in a world that, I would say, allows them to make the most of that world, and that’s a really interesting way of studying organisms that don’t have a brain.
但我们真正谈论的是实际上内置于生物体 DNA 中的策略，这些策略允许生物体生活在一个世界中，并在一个世界中行为，我想说，允许它们充分利用这个世界，这是研究没有大脑的生物体的一种非常有趣的方式。
I notice you used the word “microbe” just now, and I feel like we’ve maybe been giving short shrift to, maybe in your way of thinking the fungi are microbes.
我注意到你刚才使用了“微生物”这个词，我觉得我们可能一直在忽视，也许在你看来，真菌就是微生物。
I’m thinking here more in terms of the bacteria that I know you’ve sometimes studied and played with.
我在这里更多地考虑的是我知道你有时研究和玩过的细菌。
Yeah, exactly.
是的，完全正确。
I mean, it’s, it’s actually a big debate within mycology in general is like, are these fungal networks, are they microbes?
我的意思是，这实际上是真菌学内部的一个大争论，就像这些真菌网络是微生物吗？
In some cases they can be centimeters to meters long, right?
在某些情况下，它们可以是厘米到米长，对吗？
So that’s …
所以这就是……
but they’re invisible to the naked eye.
但它们是肉眼看不见的。
And so are they a microbe?
那么它们是微生物吗？
It really depends on your definition.
这实际上取决于你的定义。
If we talk about mycorrhizal fungi in general, there is a type, a class called ectomycorrhizal fungi, meaning outside the root.
如果我们笼统地谈论菌根真菌，有一种类型，一类叫做外生菌根真菌，意思是在根之外。
They grow outside the root, and they form mushrooms.
它们生长在根部之外，形成蘑菇。
Many of the mushrooms that we love to eat are formed by mycorrhizal fungi.
我们喜欢吃的许多蘑菇都是由菌根真菌形成的。
And, would you consider those a microbe is a big question.
而且，你是否认为这些是微生物是一个大问题。
So we, we try to be more clear and say “bacteria” and “fungi” rather than using the word “microbe.” But I think many people use the word “microbe” to describe both bacteria and, and fungi.
因此，我们尝试更清楚地说“细菌”和“真菌”，而不是使用“微生物”这个词。但我认为很多人使用“微生物”这个词来描述细菌和真菌。
There was one experiment that I remember reading about involving bacteria and soy, a certain type of soybean.
我记得读过一个涉及细菌和大豆（一种大豆）的实验。
Maybe you’ve already described it, but I wonder if …
也许你已经描述过了，但我想知道……
or have we not talked about it?
或者我们没有讨论过吗？
The one where the bacteria ended up getting suffocated.
细菌最终被窒息而死。
Yeah, this is my PhD work, focused on the ways in which soybeans, so legumes, are able to discriminate and actually punish.
是的，这是我的博士论文，重点研究大豆（即豆类）如何进行歧视和实际惩罚。
Here we use the word punish, their nitrogen-fixing bacteria if they fail to provide nitrogen.
在这里，我们使用“惩罚”这个词，即如果它们不能提供氮，它们的固氮细菌就会受到惩罚。
So I can give you some context about these manipulative experiments that we set up with soybeans and bacteria.
因此，我可以向您提供一些有关我们用大豆和细菌进行的操纵实验的背景信息。
We really wanted to understand how plants prevent these bacteria from taking too much resources.
我们真的很想了解植物如何防止这些细菌占用过多的资源。
Again, when you’ve got a very intimate symbiosis, there’s always a chance that the microbe itself can turn into a parasite and just start to consume resources from inside.
同样，当你有一个非常亲密的共生关系时，微生物本身总是有可能变成寄生虫并开始消耗内部资源。
And just to take a step back, legumes are this incredible family of plants in nature that form nodules that are full of something called rhizobia, which are nitrogen-fixing bacteria.
退一步来说，豆类是自然界中令人难以置信的植物家族，它们形成的根瘤中充满了根瘤菌，这是一种固氮细菌。
And these bacteria are incredible.
这些细菌令人难以置信。
They take nitrogen from the air, and they break that really strong triple bond, and they put it into a form of nitrogen that the plant can use.
他们从空气中获取氮气，然后打破真正坚固的三键，并将其转化为植物可以使用的氮气形式。
So they’re actually making fertilizer out of the air.
所以他们实际上是在用空气制造肥料。
It’s absolutely incredible what they can do, but it’s really expensive.
他们能做的事情绝对令人难以置信，但确实很昂贵。
It takes a lot of energy for them to break that nitrogen bond from the air and feed it to soybean plants.
它们需要大量能量才能打破空气中的氮键并将其喂给大豆植物。
So of course, they don’t do it for free, and they get lots of carbon in return.
当然，他们不是免费做的，他们得到了大量的碳作为回报。
Now, over millions of years, they have evolved a beautiful structure called a nodule on the root system of soybeans that keeps these very important bacteria safe.
现在，经过数百万年，它们在大豆根系上进化出了一种称为根瘤的美丽结构，可以保护这些非常重要的细菌的安全。
And it also keeps them safe from, from oxygen.
它还可以保护它们免受氧气的侵害。
So again, maybe please tell me if I’m getting too nerdy.
再说一遍，也许请告诉我我是否变得太书呆子了。
No, I like it.
不，我喜欢。
Keep going.
继续前进。
Hey, we’re nerds here.
嘿，我们是这里的书呆子。
Go.
去。
[ Laughs ]
[笑]
Okay.
好的。
So the only problem with being able to break that bond is that enzyme is very sensitive to oxygen, and if it gets exposed to oxygen, it doesn’t work.
因此，能够打破这种键的唯一问题是酶对氧气非常敏感，如果它暴露在氧气中，它就不起作用。
And so, what the soybean has evolved is a very complex structure where the bacteria themselves need oxygen to survive.
因此，大豆进化出了一种非常复杂的结构，细菌本身需要氧气才能生存。
They’re bacteria, so they’re respiring, but they have to keep that enzyme from being exposed to oxygen.
它们是细菌，所以它们会呼吸，但它们必须防止酶暴露于氧气。
So long story short, a soybean nodule is like a great feat of evolution, and you should always take the time to look at it.
长话短说，大豆根瘤就像进化的伟大壮举，你应该经常花时间观察它。
But we wanted to understand what would happen if the rhizobia, these bacteria inside the nodule, failed to provide this fertilizer to their plant.
但我们想了解如果根瘤菌（根瘤内的细菌）无法为植物提供这种肥料，会发生什么。
I got very frustrated with academia because it felt like the work that we were publishing on the importance of mycorrhizal networks wasn’t really being absorbed by decision-makers.
我对学术界感到非常沮丧，因为感觉我们发表的关于菌根网络重要性的工作并没有真正被决策者所吸收。
What if they just stopped fixing nitrogen?
如果他们停止固氮怎么办？
And so we did this very, I still think it clever, it was in the early 2000s, but to me it’s still incredibly clever, where we forced the bacteria to cheat by growing them in an argon atmosphere.
所以我们做了这个非常，我仍然认为它很聪明，那是在 2000 年代初期，但对我来说它仍然非常聪明，我们通过在氩气气氛中培养细菌来迫使它们作弊。
So all of a sudden, the poor bacteria were trying so hard to make nitrogen, but you can’t make nitrogen out of argon, and argon’s just an inert gas, so it didn’t hurt the nodules.
所以突然间，可怜的细菌开始拼命地制造氮气，但你不能用氩气制造氮气，而氩气只是一种惰性气体，所以它不会伤害结核。
And then we watched very patiently to see what was the response of the plant to this cheat.
然后我们非常耐心地观察植物对这种作弊的反应。
And like you said, that’s exactly what happened, was that the soybean actually suffocated the bacteria that failed to provide nitrogen.
就像你说的，事实正是如此，大豆实际上窒息了无法提供氮的细菌。
It could sense at the level of an individual nodule, how much nitrogen was being provided, and it cut off oxygen.
它可以在单个结核的水平上感知所提供的氮气量，并切断氧气。
And since then, there have been many other mechanisms that have been discovered, by which how the plants really keep a check on that bacteria from overgrowing the nodule.
从那时起，人们发现了许多其他机制，植物通过这些机制真正控制细菌免于根瘤过度生长。
My own world is math, especially, math applied to the real world, to things like biology and physics and social science.
我自己的世界是数学，尤其是数学应用于现实世界，应用于生物学、物理学和社会科学等领域。
And so as I listen to you, it just sounds like such a case study in the part of evolutionary dynamics that people who study game theory like to think about.
当我听你讲话时，这听起来像是研究博弈论的人喜欢思考的进化动力学部分的案例研究。
We do go to a lot of game theory conferences.
我们确实参加了很多博弈论会议。
We work with theoreticians at Oxford on many kinds of different questions that you can answer with game theory.
我们与牛津大学的理论家合作解决许多不同的问题，您可以用博弈论来回答这些问题。
And the collaboration works out quite well because then we can test some of these ideas very directly in the lab.
这次合作进展顺利，因为这样我们就可以直接在实验室中测试其中一些想法。
So in some cases, we’re discovering something and then trying to use game theory to explain it, and in other cases, there’s game theory that’s existing, and we use manipulative experiments to test if it’s true.
因此，在某些情况下，我们发现一些东西，然后尝试使用博弈论来解释它，而在其他情况下，存在现有的博弈论，我们使用操作性实验来测试它是否正确。
You mentioned something about some of the tools that you use in your experiments.
您提到了您在实验中使用的一些工具。
I’d like to just hear a little more about that, since we’re being nerdy here.
我想多听一点，因为我们在这里很书呆子。
You mentioned something about fluorescent…
你提到了一些关于荧光的事情......
you talked about quantum dots.
你谈到了量子点。
Quantum dots.
量子点。
We use quantum dots, and again, yeah, this is just a way to make nutrients fluoresce in bright, pure colors.
我们使用量子点，是的，这只是一种使营养物质发出明亮、纯色荧光的方法。
And the beauty about quantum dots is there’s different colors depending on different wavelengths.
量子点的美妙之处在于根据不同的波长有不同的颜色。
So if you want to take phosphorus and make it three different colors, you can.
因此，如果您想将磷制成三种不同的颜色，就可以做到。
So you can add it at three different time points and then see how much of that phosphorus was moved into the plant, depending on what time and what color it was.
因此，您可以在三个不同的时间点添加它，然后根据时间和颜色查看有多少磷被转移到植物中。
So that’s a really nice technique to actually track trade.
所以这是一种真正跟踪贸易的非常好的技术。
Another technique is the lava lamp sort of technique.
另一种技术是熔岩灯技术。
That’s probably the most beautiful, using a fluorescent tag to label the lipids inside the network and then tracking it across many different nodes.
这可能是最漂亮的，使用荧光标签来标记网络内的脂质，然后在许多不同的节点上跟踪它。
I think that’s what’s interesting, is that we have an ability to watch the carbon come up to what we call a decision point, where there’s a fork in the road, and it can either go left or it can go right, and we can watch hundreds and thousands of these decision points and try to, again, use math to understand how the carbon is being moved across the network in a very efficient and effective way.
我认为这很有趣，我们有能力观察碳到达我们所说的决策点，那里有一个岔路口，它可以向左走，也可以向右走，我们可以观察成百上千个这样的决策点，并再次尝试使用数学来理解碳是如何以非常高效和有效的方式在网络上移动的。
One of the most beautiful videos that we captured live was that there was this sort of blob of carbon coming up to a junction, and it moved all the way to the left.
我们现场拍摄的最美丽的视频之一是，有一种碳团到达了交界处，并且一直向左移动。
And then it was about halfway up into the next decision point, and it backed down to the decision point and then split almost perfectly in half and went both to the left and the right.
然后它大约进入下一个决策点的一半，然后退回到决策点，然后几乎完美地分成两半，并向左和向右移动。
Fungi are the most charismatic and fun-to-work-with organisms.
真菌是最具魅力、最有趣的生物体。
And again, this is just one observation.
再说一次，这只是一个观察结果。
but it was really beautiful to see the intricacies.
但看到这些错综复杂的东西真的很美。
It’s almost like looking into the inner lives of these organisms.
这几乎就像研究这些有机体的内部生活。
I mean, how beautiful that they’re transparent, first of all, that we can even shine light through them and see what they’re doing.
我的意思是，它们是透明的，这是多么美丽，首先，我们甚至可以透过它们照射光线并看到它们在做什么。
It’s really an invitation in many ways to understand them on their own level, on their own way.
从很多方面来说，这确实是一个邀请，让我们以自己的方式、在自己的层面上理解他们。
Sometimes I describe it as being like a primatologist.
有时我形容它就像一个灵长类动物学家。
There’s so much observation involved because you’re just watching these behaviors in real time.
这涉及到很多观察，因为你只是实时观察这些行为。
And unlike bacteria, which you know multiply and you have to wait to see what happens, when you have a network growing on one of these Petri plates under the microscope, you can interact with it in real time.
与细菌不同的是，细菌会繁殖，你必须等着看会发生什么，当你在显微镜下的其中一个培养皿上生长出一个网络时，你可以与它实时互动。
You can get down very close to the Petri plate, and they’re so exquisitely sensitive to the outside environment that just your breath changes the direction of the flows.
你可以非常靠近培养皿，它们对外部环境非常敏感，仅仅你的呼吸就能改变气流的方向。
Well, when you spoke about some of your lab experiments, I got the feeling that you might have been criticized by colleagues at some point for providing idealized conditions in the lab that allowed you to see certain patterns.
好吧，当你谈到你的一些实验室实验时，我有一种感觉，你可能在某些时候受到同事的批评，因为你在实验室中提供了理想化的条件，让你能够看到某些模式。
Ah, you’re already getting the thrust of my question.
啊，你已经明白我问题的主旨了。
Oh, yes.
哦是的。
No, but I take it as an invitation, because these systems, I’m the first to admit they’re incredibly simplified.
不，但我将其视为邀请，因为这些系统，我是第一个承认它们极其简化的人。
The other day, we had a plate that was contaminated in the sense that there was bacteria growing all over it, and we looked across the network and there were these like…
有一天，我们有一个盘子被污染了，因为上面长满了细菌，我们在网络上查看，发现有这样的东西……
they looked like little happy jelly beans, just like moving along.
它们看起来就像快乐的小糖豆，就像在前进一样。
They call that the fungal highway.
他们称之为真菌高速公路。
Bacteria use the meniscus of the network to move incredibly fast, and there’s just beautiful work coming out of Japan on how bacteria use the network.
细菌利用网络的弯液面以惊人的速度移动，日本在细菌如何使用网络方面做出了出色的工作。
And while they do that, they are giving phosphorus, and they’re interacting in such an intimate way with the fungal network that they can almost manipulate the fungal network in and of themselves to move different directions by producing, like hormones and compounds, right?
当它们这样做时，它们会提供磷，并且它们以如此亲密的方式与真菌网络相互作用，以至于它们几乎可以操纵真菌网络本身，通过产生激素和化合物等来向不同的方向移动，对吗？
So it’s just a very nested symbiosis, if you will, of so many interacting organisms underground.
所以，如果你愿意的话，这只是地下如此多相互作用的生物体的一种非常嵌套的共生关系。
And we are just studying the tip of the iceberg by doing these experiments with just the host plant and just the fungi.
我们仅通过宿主植物和真菌进行这些实验来研究冰山一角。
You know, sometimes we’ll have multiple partners, different kinds of root systems, different kinds of fungi, but they’re in very simplified systems.
你知道，有时我们会有多个伙伴、不同种类的根系、不同种类的真菌，但它们都处于非常简化的系统中。
So, just as far as the process of science and problem-solving, that if I’m hearing you right, you’re saying you know full well that you’re doing deliberately simplified work to try to tease out certain interactions, but not pretending that that’s the way it is in nature.
因此，就科学和解决问题的过程而言，如果我没听错的话，你是说你很清楚你正在故意简化工作，试图梳理出某些相互作用，但并不是假装这就是自然界的样子。
Yeah, exactly, and almost the opposite, because I’m actually doing quite a lot of work in the field as well, which we haven’t talked about.
是的，完全正确，而且几乎相反，因为我实际上也在该领域做了很多工作，但我们还没有讨论过。
I mean, so I spend about half my time in the lab and about half my time out in the field collecting soils to understand fungal communities and dynamics at the global scale.
我的意思是，我大约一半的时间在实验室，大约一半的时间在野外收集土壤，以了解全球范围内的真菌群落和动态。
I actually got very frustrated with academia because it felt like the work that we were publishing on the importance of mycorrhizal networks wasn’t really being absorbed by decision-makers.
事实上，我对学术界感到非常沮丧，因为感觉我们发表的关于菌根网络重要性的工作并没有真正被决策者所吸收。
That there’s a big leap, this chasm, between publication and how the world actually works and how decisions are made.
出版与世界实际运作方式以及决策制定方式之间存在着巨大的飞跃和鸿沟。
The importance of these mycorrhizal networks, it just wasn’t getting past the literature.
这些菌根网络的重要性还没有被文献所忽视。
And so what I wanted to do was start an organization, a nonprofit, that was able to draw attention to all of this incredible peer-reviewed research that had been being published, honestly, for decades showing the importance of mycorrhizal networks, but that just wasn’t being paid attention to.
所以我想做的是创办一个组织，一个非营利组织，能够引起人们对所有这些令人难以置信的同行评审研究的关注，老实说，这些研究几十年来一直在发表，显示了菌根网络的重要性，但只是没有受到关注。
So in 2021, I founded an organization called SPUN, which stands for the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks.
因此，在 2021 年，我成立了一个名为 SPUN 的组织，它代表地下网络保护协会。
And it had an audition, a very, very audacious mission, and that was to map the biodiversity of these mycorrhizal networks across Earth and start advocating for their protection.
它有一个试镜，一个非常非常大胆的使命，那就是绘制地球上这些菌根网络的生物多样性图，并开始倡导保护它们。
And so, we really wanted to transform how fungi were being used in climate change strategies and conservation agendas and really in restoration efforts.
因此，我们真的想改变真菌在气候变化战略和保护议程以及恢复工作中的使用方式。
And so we started this organization that’s now funding close to 140 Underground Explorers all over the world, are studying the fungal communities in some of the most understudied remote ecosystems on Earth and actually working to make these invisible networks visible.
因此，我们成立了这个组织，目前正在资助世界各地近 140 名地下探险家，他们正在研究地球上一些研究最充分的偏远生态系统中的真菌群落，并实际致力于使这些看不见的网络变得可见。
Fantastic.
极好的。
That’s a beautiful segueway.
那是一条美丽的自动车道。
I was actually hoping we would go there.
我其实希望我们能去那里。
I got there in a weird way by asking you this provocative question.
我以一种奇怪的方式问了你这个挑衅性的问题。
So I wanna hear a lot more about this.
所以我想听到更多关于这方面的信息。
What are you looking for and what are you finding?
您在寻找什么以及您发现了什么？
Let’s see.
让我们来看看。
The most recent expedition I went on was to Bhutan, uh, to these high-altitude ecosystems at the, in the Himalayan foothills.
我最近一次的探险是去不丹，呃，去喜马拉雅山麓的这些高海拔生态系统。
Absolutely incredible ecosystems with really high diversity, and also some of what we think are the most dense arbuscular mycorrhizal networks on Earth is in this area.
该地区拥有绝对令人难以置信的高度多样性的生态系统，以及我们认为地球上最密集的丛枝菌根网络。
And in all cases, what we do is we work with local collaborators who have very specific questions about the ecosystems, and actually go out and use a grid system to take soil samples, and actually pound a core into the earth and extract that core and bring the soil back to a lab, extract the fungal DNA, and start sequencing these communities.
在所有情况下，我们所做的都是与当地合作者合作，他们对生态系统有非常具体的问题，实际上出去使用网格系统采集土壤样本，实际上将一个核心敲入地球并提取该核心，然后将土壤带回实验室，提取真菌DNA，并开始对这些群落进行测序。
So you’re sequencing them.
所以你正在对它们进行排序。
Do you just wanna have a taxonomy of the kind of diversity out there?
您只想对多样性进行分类吗？
Or what is the question?
或者说问题是什么？
Yeah, well, I think like a decade ago creating a blueprint of Earth’s living underground fungal networks would’ve seemed impossible, right?
是的，嗯，我认为十年前创建地球地下活真菌网络的蓝图似乎是不可能的，对吧？
I think like historically, we understand the patterns of forests across the Earth.
我认为就像历史上一样，我们了解地球上森林的模式。
We understand ocean patterns.
我们了解海洋模式。
I mean, really our tools have been confined to what’s happening at the Earth’s surface.
我的意思是，我们的工具实际上仅限于地球表面发生的事情。
But now we’ve got these amazing emerging techniques in remote sensing, in machine learning, in fungal sequencing, and in robotics that we can actually start to understand what’s happening underground.
但现在我们在遥感、机器学习、真菌测序和机器人技术方面拥有了这些令人惊叹的新兴技术，我们实际上可以开始了解地下正在发生的事情。
And by doing that, we’re learning how fungi can be leveraged to restore degraded lands, to increase agricultural sustainability, to draw down carbon.
通过这样做，我们正在学习如何利用真菌来恢复退化的土地，提高农业的可持续性，减少碳排放。
There’s so many.
有这么多。
Even trying to go to these places where there’s pollution and understand what fungal communities are there, and what is it about their…
甚至尝试去这些有污染的地方，了解那里有哪些真菌群落，以及它们的……
what is it in their genomes that allow them to break down pollutants?
它们的基因组中是什么使它们能够分解污染物？
So many questions that we can ask with these data sets.
我们可以用这些数据集提出很多问题。
I’m getting the feeling listening to you that sort of like when people began to explore the oceans wondering what’s there.
听你说话的时候我有一种感觉，就像人们开始探索海洋，想知道那里有什么一样。
You know, it’s just a very simple kind of question.
你知道，这只是一个非常简单的问题。
We don’t even know what’s out there.
我们甚至不知道外面有什么。
It feels like that’s what’s animating some of this, that there’s a vast unexplored terra incognita that happens to be subterranean.
感觉这就是其中的一些动画，有一个巨大的未开发的未知领域恰好位于地下。
Not only is that animating it, but fungi are the most charismatic and fun-to-work-with organisms.
这不仅使它充满活力，而且真菌是最有魅力、最有趣的生物体。
So there’s this real passion of mycologists all over the world that have been so underfunded and so marginalized in many ways because it wasn’t even until sort of the 1970s, late ‘60s I think, that fungi were recognized as their own kingdom.
因此，世界各地真菌学家的这种真正的热情一直资金不足，在很多方面都被边缘化，因为直到 20 世纪 70 年代，我认为是 60 年代末，真菌才被认为是它们自己的王国。
I mean, before they were just placed in with plants.
我的意思是，在它们刚刚与植物一起放置之前。
And so it’s really shining a light on the underdog of biological diversity.
因此，它确实照亮了生物多样性的弱势群体。
I think fungi really challenge so much of what we think we know about the living world.
我认为真菌确实挑战了我们对生命世界的认知。
And so what we’re doing now is working with all these data sets and all of these scientists all over the world.
因此，我们现在正在做的是与世界各地所有这些数据集和所有这些科学家合作。
I think now there’s about 600 SPUN associates in, like, over 80 countries, and we’re working together to create something called the Underground Atlas.
我认为现在大约有 600 名 SPUN 员工分布在 80 多个国家/地区，我们正在共同努力创建一个名为“Underground Atlas”的东西。
And that’s this digital tool that allows decision-makers to actually start quantifying and tracking and protecting hidden underground fungal communities.
这就是这个数字工具，它允许决策者真正开始量化、跟踪和保护隐藏的地下真菌群落。
We’re asking, where’s the Amazon of the underground?
我们要问，地下的亚马逊在哪里？
Is it in the Amazon?
是在亚马逊吗？
Like, where are these hotspots of biodiversity, and are they being protected?
例如，这些生物多样性热点在哪里？它们是否受到保护？
So I think it was in last year, in 2025, we had a big paper in Nature that showed that 90% of mycorrhizal biodiversity hotspots are outside protected areas.
所以我认为去年，即 2025 年，我们在《自然》杂志上发表了一篇大型论文，表明 90% 的菌根生物多样性热点位于保护区之外。
So only 10% of hotspots are actually inside protected areas currently.
因此，目前只有 10% 的热点实际上位于保护区内。
And so, we’re trying to get these maps to decision-makers and say like, “Listen, this is key biodiversity that’s been ignored for so long,” and it’s also a library of solutions to really important questions facing the world in terms of, like, how are we gonna restore degraded lands?
因此，我们试图将这些地图提供给决策者，并说：“听着，这是长期以来被忽视的关键生物多样性”，它也是世界面临的真正重要问题的解决方案库，例如，我们如何恢复退化的土地？
Like you need these fungal networks to jumpstart those soil systems, but what if all of those local habitats, the fungal refugia that are so key, and those strains, those, the, all that biodiversity is lost?
就像你需要这些真菌网络来启动这些土壤系统一样，但是如果所有这些当地栖息地、至关重要的真菌保护区以及那些菌株、那些、所有生物多样性都消失了怎么办？
How are you going to start to restore an underground ecosystem?
您将如何开始恢复地下生态系统？
Let me follow up on a few very striking things you said, so many really.
让我跟进一下你所说的一些非常引人注目的事情，真的很多。
The use of the word “charismatic” is one of them.
“魅力”一词的使用就是其中之一。
I think you’ve made the case for some of the charismatic features of fungi, but I wonder if you have more that you didn’t have a chance to mention yet?
我认为您已经阐述了真菌的一些魅力特征，但我想知道您是否还有更多尚未有机会提及的特征？
Well, we use beautiful techniques, for example, confocal microscopy to look into these organisms.
好吧，我们使用美丽的技术，例如共焦显微镜来研究这些生物体。
If you were to zoom in and actually look at the spores of these organisms, they contain hundreds of nuclei that shine like little bright stars inside a balloon, and they’re the most incredible structures that you’ve ever seen.
如果你放大并实际观察这些生物体的孢子，它们含有数百个细胞核，它们像气球内的小明亮星星一样闪闪发光，它们是你见过的最令人难以置信的结构。
And to think that these spores are traveling through the air and actually changing our weather patterns, right?
想想看，这些孢子在空气中传播，实际上改变了我们的天气模式，对吗？
I mean, more and more we’re starting to understand how spores, fungal spores in the air, are an important input to generate clouds over rainforests.
我的意思是，我们越来越多地开始了解空气中的孢子、真菌孢子如何成为雨林上空产生云的重要输入。
What is not charismatic about that?
这有什么不具有魅力的呢？
They’re so beautiful on a small microscopic level, and then up in the atmosphere they’re floating around forming clouds.
它们在微观层面上是如此美丽，然后在大气层中它们漂浮在周围形成云。
I mean, there’s just nothing quite like it.
我的意思是，没有什么比这更好的了。
Great.
伟大的。
As we come towards the end of our conversation, I’d like to sort of pan back even further now to talk to you about some big questions about life, interdependence, intelligence, evolution, things like that.
当我们的谈话即将结束时，我现在想进一步回顾一下关于生命、相互依存、智力、进化等问题的一些重大问题。
I get the feeling that your work challenges a lot of the usual binaries about individuals versus networks or cooperation versus competition or organism versus ecosystem.
我觉得你的工作挑战了许多关于个人与网络、合作与竞争、有机体与生态系统的常见二元对立。
Do fungi force us to rethink what a living system is?
真菌是否迫使我们重新思考生命系统是什么？
I think fungi really challenge so much of what we think we know about the living world.
我认为真菌确实挑战了我们对生命世界的认知。
They challenge our understanding of sex.
它们挑战了我们对性的理解。
They challenge our understanding of defining what is an individual.
它们挑战了我们对个体定义的理解。
They challenge our understanding of how something so small can have such magnitudes of effects at the global level, even though it’s such a small microbe, it’s almost invisible.
它们挑战了我们的理解，即如此小的微生物如何能够在全球范围内产生如此巨大的影响，尽管它是一个如此小的微生物，但它几乎是看不见的。
And I think that’s what makes it so interesting to work with is that every day when you’re working with mycorrhizal fungi, you’re challenged.
我认为这就是工作如此有趣的原因，因为每天当你与菌根真菌一起工作时，你都会面临挑战。
They make it so you never know what’s going to happen in a given experiment.
他们这样做是为了让你永远不知道在给定的实验中会发生什么。
They keep you guessing.
他们让你不断猜测。
We call them divas sometimes, in the nicest way possible, because they keep us coming back, because they open up this idea of curiosity-driven science.
有时我们以尽可能最好的方式称他们为“天后”，因为他们让我们不断回头，因为他们开启了好奇心驱动的科学理念。
We call them divas sometimes, in the nicest way possible, because they keep us coming back, they open up this idea of curiosity-driven science.
有时我们以尽可能最好的方式称他们为“天后”，因为他们让我们不断回头，他们开启了好奇心驱动的科学理念。
You know how, we ask this question in the lab, “What is it like to be you?” We’re asking the fungi, “What is it like to be you?” And I think it’s a very respectful question because it allows them to be them and for us to be on the sidelines to develop tools to actually try to understand their inner lives.
你知道吗，我们在实验室里问这个问题：“你感觉怎么样？”我们问真菌：“作为你，感觉如何？”我认为这是一个非常尊重的问题，因为它让他们成为他们自己，让我们站在一边开发工具来真正尝试了解他们的内心生活。
So, when we talk about things like economics and using different terminologies, it’s just asking questions in a different way and taking the time to understand how these organisms live so differently in the world.
因此，当我们谈论经济学等问题并使用不同的术语时，只是以不同的方式提出问题，并花时间了解这些有机体如何在世界上以如此不同的方式生活。
Uh-huh.
嗯嗯。
Okay.
好的。
Well, I can’t leave you without hearing more about…
好吧，我不能在没有听到更多关于……的情况下离开你。
How did you put it?
你是怎么说的？
They’re forcing us to redefine what we mean by sex or something like that?
他们迫使我们重新定义性或类似的东西的含义？
Yeah, they’re challenging our understanding of sex.
是的，他们正在挑战我们对性的理解。
So mycorrhizal fungi, these arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi in particular, are a great example.
因此，菌根真菌，特别是这些丛枝菌根真菌，就是一个很好的例子。
There’s work coming out of our group here in Amsterdam led by Vasilis Kokkoris, who’s an incredible geneticist in many ways studying mycorrhizal fungi.
我们在阿姆斯特丹的团队由 Vasilis Kokkoris 领导的团队正在开展工作，他在研究菌根真菌的许多方面都是一位令人难以置信的遗传学家。
And he studies that there are two genomes simultaneously inside a single network.
他研究发现在一个网络中同时存在两个基因组。
So it’s, imagine our human body, but instead of having one genome, it has two genomes inside the same, what we would think of as an individual.
所以，想象一下我们的人体，但它不是只有一个基因组，而是有两个基因组，这就是我们所认为的个体。
It just doesn’t make any sense, and so he’s starting to understand, is there a cooperation between these two genomes?
这完全没有任何意义，所以他开始明白，这两个基因组之间是否存在合作？
Who gets to colonize what parts of the network?
谁可以殖民网络的哪些部分？
Is an individual even a network, or is an individual just a genome, tiny little nuclei floating inside this tube?
一个个体甚至是一个网络，还是一个个体只是一个基因组，漂浮在这个管子内的微小核？
It just, it’s really hard to understand.
只是，确实很难理解。
And then we don’t even know, do these genomes, do they recombine?
然后我们甚至不知道，这些基因组是否会重组？
For, for many years, the conventional idea is that these are asexual organisms, yet we see hints that maybe there’s a different kind of sex going on.
多年来，传统观念认为这些是无性生物，但我们看到迹象表明，也许存在着不同类型的性行为。
So lots of open questions about how these fungi just reproduce.
关于这些真菌如何繁殖有很多悬而未决的问题。
We know they make spores.
我们知道它们会产生孢子。
We know these spores go into the air.
我们知道这些孢子会进入空气中。
We know that the spores germinate and make what you would think is a new individual.
我们知道孢子会发芽并产生你认为的新个体。
But because there’s hundreds of nuclei inside a spore, and they’re not all the same, it just doesn’t make much sense using our conventional understanding of genetics.
但由于孢子内有数百个细胞核，而且它们并不完全相同，因此使用我们对遗传学的传统理解没有多大意义。
Hmm.
唔。
They seem to be real champions of living in an interdependent way, even across kingdoms.
他们似乎是相互依存生活方式的真正拥护者，即使是在不同的王国里。
I mean, we could do well to learn from them.
我的意思是，我们可以向他们学习。
I don’t know.
我不知道。
Do you have thoughts about this?
您对此有什么想法吗？
Is nature more cooperative?
大自然是否更加合作？
Are they a paradigm of what cooperation can look like even when you’re looking out for number one?
即使您在寻找第一，它们是否也是合作的典范？
With mycorrhizal fungi, we see them as both like a physical scaffold that holds everything together, and that really drives home this idea of interdependence, right?
对于菌根真菌，我们将它们视为将所有东西固定在一起的物理支架，这确实让人们明白了这种相互依赖的想法，对吗？
So many organisms are built upon this scaffold of life.
许多生物体都是建立在这个生命支架上的。
But there’s also this beautiful chemical interdependence, right?
但也存在这种美丽的化学相互依赖性，对吗？
They’re moving carbon through the system, and fungi are collecting phosphorus and nitrogen, and there’s this beautiful sort of dependence and movement of resources.
它们在系统中移动碳，真菌收集磷和氮，这就是资源的这种美丽的依赖和移动。
And it’s almost like this nested interaction of just so many organisms layered on.
这几乎就像是如此多的有机体分层的嵌套相互作用。
Even in the networks themselves, there can be organelles that used to be free-living bacteria inside the networks themselves.
即使在网络本身中，网络内部也可能存在曾经是自由生活的细菌的细胞器。
So, I think the more we look, the more interdependence and nestedness we see.
所以，我认为我们看得越多，我们就会看到更多的相互依赖和嵌套。
Now, that doesn’t mean there’s no tension, right?
现在，这并不意味着没有紧张，对吧？
There’s always a tension.
总是有一种紧张感。
It’s a beautiful tension between organisms because they have different needs.
这是生物体之间的一种美丽的张力，因为它们有不同的需求。
They have different resources that they need to access, to reproduce, and that creates a beautiful opera of interactions that’s not always beneficial, not always cooperative, but instead it creates a beautiful tension, very much like an opera, where sometimes the characters are getting along, and sometimes they’re not.
他们拥有需要访问和复制的不同资源，这创造了一部美丽的互动歌剧，它并不总是有益的，并不总是合作的，而是创造了一种美丽的张力，非常像一部歌剧，有时角色相处融洽，有时则不然。
I really like your analogy there because it is operatic in that, this traditional framing, or at least very commonplace about selfishness, puts such a negative tone on the thing, whereas when you speak of it as opera or drama, it’s like each character has desires.
我真的很喜欢你的比喻，因为它是歌剧式的，这种传统的框架，或者至少是关于自私的非常普遍的说法，给事情带来了如此负面的基调，而当你把它当作歌剧或戏剧来谈论时，就好像每个角色都有欲望。
It needs certain things.
它需要某些东西。
It wants what it wants, and that’s not exactly selfish.
它想要它想要的东西，而这并不完全是自私的。
It’s just, it’s the nature of being alive.
只是，这就是活着的本质。
We all have our needs.
我们都有我们的需求。
Exactly.
确切地。
And I just don’t think that we should be scared of studying that tension in a curious way because that tension leads to innovation, right?
我只是认为我们不应该害怕以一种好奇的方式研究这种紧张局势，因为这种紧张局势会带来创新，对吗？
When there’s some kind of conflict between organisms, that leads to the generation of new ideas.
当有机体之间存在某种冲突时，就会导致新想法的产生。
And that’s always really interesting is that it’s not s- everybody thinks that conflict in and of itself or that tension is a bad thing, but actually can generate biological diversity and allow organisms to create ecosystems that are much more complex than they would be otherwise.
有趣的是，并不是每个人都认为冲突本身或紧张局势是一件坏事，但实际上可以产生生物多样性，并允许生物体创造出比其他情况复杂得多的生态系统。
That’s beautiful.
那好美丽。
Well, you really give the impression of someone having fun being a scientist.
嗯，你给人的印象确实是一个享受当科学家的乐趣的人。
Yes, lots of fun and very little sleep ’cause there’s a lot to do.
是的，有很多乐趣，但睡眠很少，因为有很多事情要做。
There’s a lot to do.
有很多事情要做。
All right.
好的。
Well, thank you very much, Toby.
嗯，非常感谢你，托比。
This has been great fun for us too.
这对我们来说也很有趣。
We’re really happy to have you on The Joy of Why .
我们非常高兴您能加入“为什么的喜悦”节目。
It was so fun.
太有趣了。
Thanks so much for having me.
非常感谢你邀请我。
It’s so interesting to imagine organisms interacting competitively, operatically.
想象生物体之间竞争性地、可操作性地相互作用是非常有趣的。
I love that image.
我喜欢那个形象。
But also beyond co-dependence, I mean, there are bacterial organelles that have been synthesized into fungi.
但除了相互依赖之外，我的意思是，还有一些细菌细胞器被合成为真菌。
That seems like the boundary between separate organisms has also diffused, and that’s pretty remarkable.
看来不同生物体之间的界限也已经扩散，这是非常了不起的。
There also seems to be this kind of, like, evolutionary idea that pressure creates evolution.
似乎还有一种类似进化论的观点，即压力创造进化。
It drives evolution, right?
它推动了进化，对吗？
Yeah, that’s right.
是的，没错。
We do use that phrase, right?
我们确实使用这个短语，对吗？
Selective pressure.
选择压力。
We tend to think, oh, stress is a bad thing.
我们倾向于认为，哦，压力是一件坏事。
We need to reduce stress in our lives or conflict, and I think it’s an interesting instructive point that Toby makes that, yes, of course, you don’t wanna overdo it with stress and tension and all that, but a certain amount of tension or stress or competition can lead to complexity, she mentions, innovation.
我们需要减少生活中的压力或冲突，我认为托比提出的一个有趣的指导性观点是，是的，当然，你不想过度承受压力和紧张等等，但一定程度的紧张或压力或竞争可能会导致复杂性，她提到，创新。
It does appear to be very deeply woven into the nature of life.
它似乎确实深深地融入了生活的本质。
Yeah, I feel like there’s also a metaphor for life there somehow.
是的，我觉得那里也有某种生活的隐喻。
You know, how to take lessons from nature and how to evolve.
你知道，如何从自然中吸取教训，如何进化。
Anyway, we don’t have much choice.
无论如何，我们没有太多选择。
That does seem to be the way things are.
事情似乎确实就是这样。
So these fungi are really so interconnected and so interdependent that, do they talk about that boundary of organisms where they have really begun to merge to some extent?
因此，这些真菌确实如此相互关联、如此相互依存，以至于它们是否谈论了它们真正开始在某种程度上融合的有机体边界？
Yeah, it’s very tricky to think about what’s an organism, what’s a system, an ecosystem, a population, a colony.
是的，思考什么是有机体、什么是系统、生态系统、种群、群体是非常棘手的。
It’s an issue we’ve gotten into with some of our other guests in The Joy of Why.
这是我们在《为什么的喜悦》中与其他一些嘉宾讨论过的一个问题。
It’s really maybe a case where our human-imposed distinctions may not line up very well with the way nature operates.
这确实可能是我们人类强加的区别可能与自然运作方式不太相符的情况。
We’re putting categories on things that are just more subtle than that.
我们对比这更微妙的事物进行分类。
I wonder if people are also thinking about ways to induce these networks to help clean up some of the climate crisis that we’re facing.
我想知道人们是否也在考虑如何引导这些网络来帮助解决我们面临的一些气候危机。
If these are so influential and they have such an important role in terms of, if you like, the economics of the ecosystem or the economics of the biosphere, is there a way that we can guide a fungi to help clean up this mess?
如果它们如此有影响力，并且它们在生态系统经济学或生物圈经济学方面（如果你愿意的话）发挥如此重要的作用，那么我们是否可以引导真菌来帮助清理这个烂摊子？
Hmm.
唔。
You know, I don’t know that they need any encouragement from us.
你知道，我不知道他们需要我们的任何鼓励。
They just need protection to not have their ecosystems devastated.
他们只需要保护，以免生态系统遭到破坏。
And, she did mention that a vast amount of these mycorrhizal networks are not the places being protected.
而且，她确实提到，大量的菌根网络并不是受到保护的地方。
So, this is what she and her colleagues are trying to bring attention to.
所以，这就是她和她的同事们试图引起人们注意的事情。
Because we don’t see them, we don’t notice or think about them but they may be just as important.
因为我们看不到它们，所以我们不会注意到或思考它们，但它们可能同样重要。
Yeah.
是的。
Maybe nature will show us the way.
也许大自然会为我们指明道路。
Yeah.
是的。
As always, it’s been a pleasure.
一如既往，这是一种乐趣。
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如果您正在享受《The Joy of Why》但尚未订阅，请在您收听的任何地方点击订阅或关注按钮。
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它可以帮助人们找到这个播客。
Find articles, newsletters, videos and more at quantamagazine.org.
在 Quantamamagazine.org 上查找文章、新闻通讯、视频等。
The Joy of Why is a podcast from Quanta Magazine , an editorially independent publication supported by the Simons Foundation.
《The Joy of Why》是来自《Quanta》杂志的播客，《Quanta》杂志是一份由西蒙斯基金会支持的独立编辑出版物。
Funding decisions by the Simons Foundation have no influence on the selection of topics, guests or other editorial decisions in this podcast or in Quanta Magazine .
西蒙斯基金会的资助决定不会影响本播客或广达杂志的主题选择、嘉宾或其他编辑决定。
The Joy of Why is produced by PRX Productions; the production team is Caitlin Faulds, Jade Abdul-Malik, Genevieve Sponsler, and Merritt Jacob.
《Joy of Why》由 PRX Productions 制作；制作团队包括 Caitlin Faulds、Jade Abdul-Malik、Genevieve Sponsler 和 Merritt Jacob。
The Executive Producer of PRX Productions is Jocelyn Gonzales.
PRX Productions 的执行制片人是 Jocelyn Gonzales。
Edwin Ochoa is our project manager.
埃德温·奥乔亚是我们的项目经理。
From Quanta Magazine , Simon Frantz and Samir Patel provided editorial guidance, with support from Samuel Velasco, Kit Sudol, Simone Barr, and Michael Kanyongolo.
Quanta 杂志的 Simon Frantz 和 Samir Patel 提供了编辑指导，并得到了 Samuel Velasco、Kit Sudol、Simone Barr 和 Michael Kanyongolo 的支持。
Samir Patel is Quanta’s Editor-in-Chief.
萨米尔·帕特尔 (Samir Patel) 是广达的主编。
The episode art is by Chanelle Nibbelink and our logo is by Jaki King and Kristina Armitage.
剧集艺术由 Chanelle Nibbelink 创作，我们的徽标由 Jaki King 和 Kristina Armitage 创作。
Special thanks to Garth Avery at the Cornell Broadcast Studio.
特别感谢康奈尔广播工作室的 Garth Avery。
I’m your host, Steve Strogatz.
我是你们的主持人，史蒂夫·斯特罗加茨。
If you have any questions or comments, please email us at [email protected] .
如果您有任何问题或意见，请发送电子邮件至 [email protected]。
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感谢您的聆听。
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《Quanta》杂志对评论进行审核，以促进知情、实质性、文明的对话。
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Moderators are staffed during regular business hours (New York time) and can only accept comments written in English.
版主在正常工作时间（纽约时间）有工作人员，并且只能接受英文评论。