【www.xieat.com - 新闻】
今天小编为大家分享的是关于大熊猫黑白相间的原因是营养不良造成的吗的文章，一起来看看吧。
憨态可掬的大熊猫为什么只有“黑白照片”？这其实是生物研究中的难题。美国研究人员日前在新一期《行为生态学》杂志网络版上发表论文解答，大熊猫的黑白色有两种功能：伪装和交流。
领导研究的美国加利福尼亚大学戴维斯分校教授蒂姆·卡罗介绍说，生物学界长期存在的一个问题就是如何理解大熊猫身上的黑白色，这并不容易回答，因为其他哺乳动物长得都不是这样的，所以很难通过类比来解释。
该校和加利福尼亚州立大学长滩分校的研究人员根据皮毛颜色深浅将大熊猫的身躯划分成不同区域，并与狗、猫、熊等１９５种食肉动物以及熊科动物的３９个亚种进行比较，来寻找关联性并确定其功能。
研究人员通过比较发现，大熊猫的脸、脖子、肚皮和臀部之所以是白色的，是因为这能帮助它们在积雪的栖息地躲藏；而四肢之所以是黑色的，是因为这能帮助它们将自己躲藏在阴影里。
研究人员认为，大熊猫长成这样源于其消化能力较弱，只能以竹子为食而不能吃更多种植物。它们也无法像有些熊那样在冬天存储多余的脂肪来冬眠。它们必须终年活动，长途跋涉去觅食，其栖息地变化也很大，从雪山到热带森林都有。
不过，大熊猫的头部配色不是为了伪装躲开捕食者，而是起到交流作用。它们黑色的耳朵表达一种“凶残”的感觉，可以警告捕食者；而黑眼圈有助于同类间互相识别，或者向同类竞争者加以警告。
Scientists have thrown up plenty of potential reasons for the contrasting colors of the giant panda bear. Could they be for stealth, regulating temperature or a warning to potential predators? Researchers now believe they know the reasons behind the iconic black and white patches: a need for camouflage combined with a need to communicate.
The scientist that led the research, Tim Caro, has some experience in uncovering the secrets behind another animal"s distinctive coloring. A professor at University of California, Davis, in 2014 he published a paper in the journal Nature Communications, revealing that the reason zebras have stripes is to deter biting flies. He arrived at this conclusion by reviewing literature on other mammals in the horse family and found that striped species occurred in locations where biting flies were abundant.
But the issue with tackling the same problem in the panda bear is that there is no animal like it; it stands alone as a black-and-white outlier among mammal species, which makes comparisons difficult. But the team overcame this by breaking down the different parts of the body and treating them as independent areas.
Through this method, the team compared patches of fur from the panda"s body to the dark and light coloring of 195 other carnivore species and 39 related bear sub-species. They then examined associations with the various hair colorings and the animal"s environment to work out what purpose they served.
The results led them to conclude that the majority of the panda"s body, including its face, neck, belly and behind, is white to help it blend into snowy habitats. Its arms and legs meanwhile, are black to help it hide in the shade. Interestingly, the black markings on the head seem to have nothing to do with camouflage, but rather are used for communication. The dark ears may help them seem fierce when the time is right, as a warning to predators, while the dark patches around the eyes might be used for communication, helping pandas recognize one another or signal aggression.
The team suggests that pandas evolved their two-tone appearance due to their poor diet of bamboo, which meant that they were never able to store enough fat to go dormant during the winter like some bears. So because they had to be on the move year-round, they had to be able to hide in a variety of habitats ranging from snowy mountains to tropical forests.
"This really was a Herculean effort by our team, finding and scoring thousands of images and scoring more than 10 areas per picture from over 20 possible colors," said co-author Ted Stankowich, a professor at California State University, Long Beach. "Sometimes it takes hundreds of hours of hard work to answer what seems like the simplest of questions: Why is the panda black and white?"
The team"s research was published in the journal Behavioural Ecology.
Source: University of California, Davis via EurekAlert
本文来源：http://www.xieat.com/xinwen/26123/
推荐访问:大熊猫为什么黑白相间
