How to win at evolution and survive a mass extinction | Lauren Sallan

譯者: Lilian Chiu 審譯者: Helen Chang

Congratulations.

恭喜。

By being here,

能在這裡，

listening, alive,

能夠聽，能活著，

a member of a growing species,

身為一個不斷成長之物種的一員，

you are one of history's greatest winners --

你就是歷史上最偉大的贏家之一，

the culmination of a success story four billion years in the making.

花了四十億年形成之成功故事高點。

You are life's one percent.

你是生命的前 1%。

The losers,

輸家們，

the 99 percent of species who have ever lived,

其餘 99% 曾經存在過的物種

are dead --

都死了；

killed by fire, flood, asteroids,

死因包括大火、洪水、小行星、

predation, starvation, ice, heat

掠食、饑荒、冰、熱，

and the cold math of natural selection.

以及物競天擇的冷酷數學。

Your ancestors,

你們的祖先，

back to the earliest fishes,

回推到最早的魚類，

overcame all these challenges.

克服了各種挑戰。

You are here because of golden opportunities

你們會在這裡，

是因為大滅絕所帶來的黃金機會。

made possible by mass extinction.

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

It's true.

是真的。

The same is true of your co-winners and relatives.

對你的共同贏家、 親戚們而言也是如此：

The 34,000 kinds of fishes.

三萬四千種魚類。

How did we all get so lucky?

我們怎麼會這麼幸運？

Will we continue to win?

我們能繼續贏下去嗎？

I am a fish paleobiologist who uses big data --

我是魚類的古生物學家，

用大數據，化石記錄，

the fossil record --

to study how some species win and others lose.

來研究為什麼有些物種能贏， 其他的則輸了。

The living can't tell us;

還活著的無法告訴我們；

they know nothing but winning.

他們對「贏」一無所知。

So, we must speak with the dead.

所以我們必須與已死的對話。

How do we make dead fishes talk?

我們要如何讓死魚說話？

Museums contain multitudes of beautiful fish fossils,

博物館有許多美麗的魚化石，

but their real beauty emerges

但要讓它們真正的美浮現，

when combined with the larger number of ugly, broken fossils,

要把它們與更多醜陋、 破碎的化石結合，

and reduced to ones and zeros.

然後再縮減為一和零。

I can trawl a 500-million-year database for evolutionary patterns.

我可以在一個五億年 資料庫中搜尋演化模式。

For example,

比如，

fish forms can be captured by coordinates

魚的形式可以用座標來表示，

and transformed to reveal major pathways of change

然後轉換來揭示

隨時間發生的主要改變路徑和趨勢。

and trends through time.

Here is the story of the winners and losers

以下是個關於贏家和輸家的 關鍵事件的故事，

of just one pivotal event I discovered using fossil data.

是我用化石資料發現的。

Let's travel back 360 million years --

讓我們回到 3.6 億年前──

six times as long ago as the last dinosaur --

比最後一隻恐龍在世的時間 還要往回推六倍的時間──

to the Devonian period;

回到泥盆紀；

a strange world.

一個奇怪的世界。

Armored predators with razor-edge jaws dominated

下巴有剃刀邊緣的武裝掠食者

alongside huge fishes with arm bones in their fins.

和魚鰭中有手臂骨的大魚是主宰者。

Crab-like fishes scuttled across the sea floor.

像螃蟹的魚類沉在海底。

The few ray-fin relatives of salmon and tuna

鮭魚和鮪魚的少數輻鰭親戚

cowered at the bottom of the food chain.

畏縮地待在食物鏈的最底層。

The few early sharks lived offshore in fear.

少數早期的鯊魚，恐懼地住在近海。

Your few four-legged ancestors, the tetrapods,

你們的四隻腳祖先，即四足動物，

struggled in tropical river plains.

在熱帶河流邊的平原上掙扎求生。

Ecosystems were crowded.

生態系統很擁擠。

There was no escape,

無處可逃，

no opportunity in sight.

眼前也沒有機會。

Then the world ended.

接著世界末日了。

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

No, it is a good thing.

不，這是好事。

96 percent of all fish species died

所有魚種中的 96% 都死亡了，

during the Hangenberg event, 359 million years ago:

這是 3.59 億年前的 泥盆紀後期滅絕事件：

an interval of fire and ice.

這是段火與冰的時期。

A crowded world was disrupted and swept away.

擁擠的世界被中斷、被徹底泯滅了。

Now, you might think that's the end of the story.

你們可能認為故事就到此為止。

The mighty fell, the meek inherited the earth,

強大者陣亡，溫順者繼承了地球，

and here we are.

我們就在這裡了。

But winning is not that simple.

但，要贏並沒有那麼簡單。

The handful of survivors came from many groups --

許多族群的少量生存者──

all greatly outnumbered by their own dead.

這些族群都是死亡數遠高於存活數。

They ranged from top predator to bottom-feeder,

從最上層的掠食者到最下層的都有，

big to small,

從大到小都有，

marine to freshwater.

從海洋到淡水都有。

The extinction was a filter.

滅絕是一種過濾。

It merely leveled the playing field.

它只是把遊樂場給變平等了。

What really counted was what survivors did over the next several million years

真正重要的是在接下來的數百年間，

生存者在那荒蕪的世界中做了什麼。

in that devastated world.

The former overlords should have had an advantage.

先前的最高統治者應該會有優勢。

They became even larger,

牠們變得更大了，

storing energy,

儲存能量，

investing in their young,

投資在孩子身上，

spreading across the globe,

散佈到全球，

feasting on fishes,

享用魚類，

keeping what had always worked, and biding their time.

保持向來的運作，等待牠們的時機。

Yet they merely persisted for a while,

但，牠們只堅持了一下子，

declining without innovating,

沒有創新而衰落，

becoming living fossils.

變成了活化石。

They were too stuck in their ways

牠們太執著在自己的方式，

and are now largely forgotten.

現在大多已被遺忘。

A few of the long-suffering ray-fins, sharks and four-legged tetrapods

少數長期遭受苦難的輻鰭魚類、 鯊魚和四足動物，

went the opposite direction.

走的路則完全相反。

They became smaller --

牠們變小了──

living fast, dying young,

生命過得很快，很早逝，

eating little and reproducing rapidly.

吃得少，繁殖快。

They tried new foods,

牠們嘗試新食物，

different homes,

不同的家園，

strange heads and weird bodies.

奇怪的頭和怪異的身體。

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

And they found opportunity, proliferated,

牠們找到機會，增殖，

and won the future for their 60,000 living species,

為牠們六萬個現存物種贏得了未來，

including you.

包括你們。

That's why they look familiar.

那就是為何牠們很眼熟。

You know their names.

你們知道牠們的名字。

Winning is not about random events

要贏的重點

不是隨機發生的事件或軍備競賽。

or an arms race.

Rather, survivors went down alternative, evolutionary pathways.

而是倖存者走向 替代道路、演化的路徑。

Some found incredible success,

有些找到了極大的成功，

while others became dead fish walking.

其他的則是「行屍走魚」。

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

A real scientific term.

這是真的科學術語。

(Laughter)

（笑聲）

I am now investigating

我現在在研究

how these pathways to victory and defeat repeat across time.

這些通往勝利和失敗的路徑 如何隨時間而重覆發生。

My lab has already compiled thousands upon thousands of dead fishes,

我的實驗室已經收集了 數以千計的死魚，

but many more remain.

但還有很多其他的。

However, it is already clear

然而，已經能清楚知道，

that your ancestors' survival through mass extinction,

你們祖先在大滅絕中存活下來，

and their responses in the aftermath

而牠們在事件後的反應，

made you who you are today.

造成了現在的你們。

What does this tell us for the future?

這告訴我們什麼關於未來的訊息？

As long as a handful of species survive,

只要還有少數物種存活，

life will recover.

生命就會恢復。

The versatile and the lucky will not just replace what was lost,

能隨機應變的、運氣好的物種， 不只會取代已失去的，

but win in new forms.

還會以新形式來贏。

It just might take several million years.

只是會花上數百萬年。

Thank you.

謝謝。

(Applause)

（掌聲）