Water pollution is posing a threat to bird populations by causing males to mate with each other. Scientists believe poisonous metal compounds entering the food chain can affect sexuality, causing a reduction in found that even relatively low levels of methylmercury in the diet of male white ibises caused the birds to pair up with each other, snubbing females.
科学家发现，愈发严重的水污染不仅影响着人类的生活质量，也迫使得鸟儿的“性取向”发生的改变。研究发现，食用有毒金属物质可以大大影响生物的性取向，并对繁衍后代造成障碍。据悉，雄性白鸛在食用汞污染的食物后，会做出“惊人的”同性恋行为，对同性雄鸟“释放爱意”，却对雌性白鸛“不理不睬”。
As a result fewer females breed and fewer chicks are produced. Methylmercury is a form of mercury – the metal which is liquid at room temperature and is better known as quicksilver. It has been seeping into groundwater from industry for years. This is the first scientific study to show how the pollutant appears to alter sexual preference.
这样下来，雌性白鸛的繁衍机率就会被降到最低点。据悉，甲基水银又称汞，一种导致内分泌紊乱的物质，会影响汞中毒，雄性禽类食用发现鸟群中汞含量摄入量越高，雄鸟与同性配对的机率就愈高。这也是人类第一次针对“汞对性取向产生的影响”做的科学分析。
U.S. researcher Peter Frederick captured 160 young white ibises – a coastal wading bird – and gave them food laced with methylmercury. .‘But we didn’t expect this. In the worst-case scenario, the production of young would fall by 50 per cent.’ Other birds would probably be similarly affected, he said. However, Dr Frederick, of the Florida University, and fellow researcher Nilmini Jayasena, of the Peradeniya University, Sri Lanka, admitted it was far from clear if methylmercury could be linked to similar effects in mammals.
美国研究者 Peter Frederick 把160只白鸛分成两组进行让他们分别食用汞污染食物实验而得出的结论，实验最坏的结果显示，因食用污染食物而导致“不孕”状况的鸟类数量增大5成。专家还担心，除了白鸛受影响，还可能有更多的物种受影响，因为哺乳动物因污染而“被变性”的机率极高。
Vocabulary：
snubbing v. 冷落；使突然停止（snub的ing形式）
scenario n. 方案；情节；剧本
