大自然中的非零和博弈

05-15

While survival and breeding is the main goals for animals, there is times when

animals must come together to make this goal. This article will talk about some

of the animals that will normally not work together but come to gather in times

of need to help each other. This is

known as mutualism

The toad and the tarantulas

This is one of the bizarre become people who study tarantulas couldn』t understand why these

would work together, as tarantula』s like to eat toads. But for survival they

came to an understanding, the toad will eat any parasite that are too small for

the tarantula to attack and could give the tarantula a disease. While the

tarantulas protect the toad from larger predators, since the toad will act like

bait it provides tarantulas will food and the parasites that attack the

tarantula provides food for the toad. With this considered it makes it a good

team to work together, both get protection from each other and they both

provide food for each other.

Spider crabs and algae

The best way to hunt in a wild is to blend into the background, so that the prey they

are hunting cannot notice them approaching. This is when the spider crab comes

into play, the spider crab will stay it swallow waters allowing algae to grow

on it, the common interest in this is survival. The crab can blend in better

with the sea floor allowing it to hunt better and the algae is able to grow and

spread its self-further areas of the ocean floor, so the benefit of this team

work in spreading genes and hunting.

Screech

Owls and Blind Snakes

This owl like to live in abandoned woodpecker and spend there say hunting rodents and

other small mammals and building a nest out of the carcases, but the main

problem with this is that the bodies rodents will start to attract insects and

parasites. So how does the owl deal with this? it does out and finds something

that it would normally eat, a snake. This snake is called a blind snake very

small and only hunts insects and parasites. The snake will burrow into the nest

but one of the problems is that when the owl lays eggs and the eggs hatch. The

insects would provide nutrients for the baby owls but it』s better for them to

be protected by the snake in the long run. The snake gets as much food as it

wants if the owl brings food to the nest and the owl gets a clean nest free of

parasites and the young owls are protected from parasites.

These team

ups are only a small example of how animals will work together for survival.

Although these are learned there is one team up that is spectacular to see.

That is during an annual feeding frenzy that include dolphins, sharks, whales

and birds.

the bait balls

this is one of the biggest team works that occurs on the planet and the payoff is a lot of

food, the food they are after is sardines. When the sardines are migrating,

they will be four miles long and 1 mile thick and all the fish can be seen from

the surface, the animals only have 5 days before the sardines leave and they

lose the chance to have a feast.

The dolphins will surround the fish controlling the movements with chirping, making the fish

confused and start swimming into a ball, the fish will try and rise to the top

to escape the dolphins, but this is when the birds attack. The fish are the

right distance for the birds to swoop down into the water to grab fish.

This is when the sharks start to get involved they get very excited and start attacking

the sardines and the dolphins start to use bubbles to make the bait balls a lot

tighter so it』s easier to attack. This is known as a bubbles net which looks

very terrifying to fish. Once the fish are in these balls all the animals will

attack until they have their fill, but it』s not over for the sardines yet all

the ones that think they escape must deal with the whales that will eat any

sardines that try to escape.

This team up is very powerful and terrifying for the sardines but it also shows you how

intelligent the dolphins are. As they are the brains of this attack making sure

all the sardines are in control and offering food to the other animals so that

there is no conflict between the predators. Also, to note is that animals do

not eat more then they need so there is always enough fish alive to breed for

the next season.

中文翻譯：

生存與繁衍是動物最主要的人生目標，但有時為了達成這兩項，需團隊協作。這些動物平日里通常獨來獨往，但是在一些關鍵時刻，它們卻能團結在一起互幫互助，這個就被稱作「互惠共生」。

蟾蜍與狼蛛

當人們在研究狼蛛時，對於狼蛛與蟾蜍一同工作的現象始終覺得匪夷所思，因為蟾蜍通常是狼蛛的盤中餐。但是為了生存，它們求同存異了。狼蛛知道蟾蜍可以替它消滅一切治病寄生蟲，同時狼蛛也能保護蟾蜍免受其他天敵。在這個過程中，蟾蜍就充當了狼蛛的誘餌，幫助其狩獵，同時又能幫助狼蛛免受寄生蟲的騷擾；狼蛛也會分一杯羹給蟾蜍。

蜘蛛蟹與藻類

最好的狩獵方式就是融入其中，也就是我們所說的偽裝。因為一旦與周圍環境融為一體，獵物就很難發現捕獵者的靠近。蜘蛛蟹有了海藻的掩護使之與海床融為一體，有利於它靠近其它獵物，對於海藻來說，也方便它自身的傳播，它們兩者的結合既便於捕獵也便於基因的傳播。

鴟鵂和盲蛇

鴟鵂喜歡住在被遺棄的啄木鳥的巢穴中，捕食嚙齒類動物以及一些小型的哺乳動物，喜歡在動物的屍體外築巢。但是最主要的問題在於那些嚙齒類動物與屍體容易得到昆蟲與寄生蟲的青睞，所以鴟鵂該如何解決這個難題呢？那就是找到一個吃貨幫手，盲蛇就是以食昆蟲和寄生蟲為生的。盲蛇會鑽入鴟鵂巢穴，但是如果當鴟鵂產蛋後，幼雛就會被孵化出來，此時食物供應就會緊缺，因為幼雛也需要食用昆蟲，但在整個成長過程中，都由盲蛇的保護。盲蛇能夠盡情享用鴟鵂帶回來的食物，同時鴟鵂也擁有一個安全、乾淨衛生的生活環境。

這些動物間的合作只是自然界中較為平常的求同存異的組合。然而在大自然中，還有一種令人嘆為觀止的雙贏合作發生在每年的瘋狂覓食期。身處其中的生物有海豚、鯊魚、鯨類、鳥類。

魚群的誘惑

對於魚群的截殺可能算是地球上最大規模的合作，當然合作的結果也是相當樂觀的，可以收穫大量的食物——沙丁魚。當沙丁魚進行大規模遷徙時，整個魚群長達4英里，厚1英里，從水面上看烏壓壓的一片。對於獵手來說，他們在沙丁魚到達目的地前，只有5天的時間下手，一旦錯過時間便會錯失良機。

海豚首先會圍繞魚群轉圈，用它特有的鳴叫聲控制住魚群的走勢，這會讓魚群找不著東西南北，開始轉圈，最終形成一個球狀，在這個過程中，魚會努力往上游，想方設法逃脫海豚的控制，但此時就會面臨來自鳥類的攻擊，由於此時魚類的位置較為靠近水平面，鳥就能直接俯衝下來，抓捕獵物。

這時，該鯊魚登場了，鯊魚也興緻勃勃得加入攻擊魚群的隊伍中，海豚會用吹泡泡的方式，使魚群更加聚攏，這樣獵物的範圍就能有效縮減。這就是很有名的泡泡網，對於魚群來說簡直是致命的。因為這樣一個「魚球」會吸引四面八方的獵食者，直到它們感到飽腹為止。對於沙丁魚來說，還沒完，因為任何企圖脫離這個球體的沙丁魚都逃脫不了鯨的魔爪。

這樣的戰隊無疑是強大的，對於沙丁魚來說也是在劫難逃的。但是不難發現裡面的核心成員——海豚，是它擁有智慧控制了魚群的走勢，為其他動物提供了食物來源，也避免了不同獵食者之間的競爭。但是也不用為魚群太過擔心，因為大自然中的獵食者都不會太貪心，一旦它們吃飽了，就不會進行捕殺，因此總有足夠的魚群活下來，在下一季中，繼續「生兒孕女」