For River Otters, Social Life Is Shaped by the Latrine
水獭们由“公厕”发展起来的群居生活

Alaskan river otters can gain valuable information about one another by sniffing around their latrines. Jason G. Goldman reports.
阿拉斯加水獭可以够通过在“公厕”四周嗅出同类留下的气味从而获得有用信息。杰森·戈尔德曼报道。

撰文/播音：杰森·戈尔德曼(Jason G. Goldman)
翻译：郭鑫鹏
审校：索红日

River otters, like other social animals, has to carefully weigh the costs and benefits of hanging out in large groups. A big group makes it easier to catch fish, which seems like a good deal, but there’s a downside to social life too. More otters means more chances for disease transmission, for example, or for aggressive conflict. So they balance these pressures by living in what researchers call a “fission-fusion society.”
和其他群居动物一样，水獭需要很小心地衡量在大群体里生活的代价和收益。其好的方面可以让捕鱼变得更加简单，但是群居生活也会有消极的一面。更多的同类意味着高疾病传播风险和更多冲突的发生。所以它们采取一种研究者们称作“时分时聚”群居生活，以平衡这种压力。

“There’s this constant dynamic of splitting and joining into larger groups.”
“大群体就是这样一种不断分离和聚集的动态群居状态。”

University of Wyoming ecologist Adi Barocas. To understand the factors that drive these social dynamics, Bacrocas’s team, from the University of Wyoming and the Alaska Department of Fish & Game, has spent decades spying on the coastal river otters of Alaska near Prince William Sound. To do it, they use motion-activated camera traps as well as implanted radio trackers.
怀俄明大学生物学家安迪·巴罗卡斯说道。为了理解影响这些动态群居的因数，由怀俄明大学和阿拉斯加渔业狩猎部组成的巴罗卡斯的团队花了数十年调查威廉王子湾附近的水獭。他们使用动作感应相机和植入无线电跟踪器进行跟踪拍摄。

“The latrines, which are pretty much communal toilets that the river otters use, they seem to have an important function in the life of river otters.”
“这些“公厕”，是水獭们公共的排便点，对于水獭们的生活有着重要作用。”

That’s right: river otter society is organized around the bathroom. It makes good sense. By investigating a latrine, an otter can sniff out just how many otters there are in the area, and who they might be.
没错，水獭的社会通过“公厕”组织而成。这有很大的意义。通过调查一个“公厕”，一只水獭可以嗅出该区域有多少同伴以及它们都是谁。

The researchers found that the otters performed more signaling behaviors like sniffing, body rubbing, or urinating, than social behaviors, like grooming or play, at what they called crossover latrines, which were located at the junctions of water bodies.
研究者们发现有水的“公厕”，比起梳理、嬉戏等社会行为，水獭更多使用嗅觉、身体摩擦、排尿等信号行为。

Thanks to all that communicative signaling, these crossover latrines were also more likely to host fusion events, resulting in large aggregations of up to eighteen otters. In other words, the otters see latrines as a place to exchange information, a sort of central marketplace.
多亏这些交流的信号行为，这些“公厕”很有可能会发生聚集活动，使得多达18个水獭聚集在一起。换而言之，水獭将厕所视为交换信息的中心市场。

Because the location of crossover latrines was determined by the physical landscape, this suggests that the complexity of the physical environment plays an important role in determining their social behavior.
由于这些“公厕”由物理地貌决定，因此环境地形的复杂性是决定这些社会行为的重要因素。

Next, the researchers want to see just how and what the otters communicate at latrines.
接着，研究者们想要研究水獭们究竟是如何通过这些“公厕”进行交流的。

“We often see the river otters sniffing at the latrines and also defecating, and before defecating they do a little ritualized behavior that we termed ‘the poop dance’.”
“我们经常看到水獭在‘公厕’附近嗅来嗅去和排便，在排便前它们会举行被称作‘排便舞’的小仪式。”

What scents are they trying to sniff out? Which olfactory compounds are at play? Can the otters control the scents they leave behind? Who’s watching the poop dance?
它们究竟通过嗅觉找到了什么？什么样的嗅觉物质发挥了作用？水獭可以控制它们留下的这些气味吗？这样的“排便舞是跳给谁看的“？

And most importantly, why doesn’t anybody ever remember to flush?
更重要的是，为什么没有人记得冲水？

-Jason G. Goldman