经济学人科技 || 葡萄根瘤蚜

原文:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzU1MDQwNTgzMg==&mid=2247491007&idx=1&sn=b89090b4ee0972dab297bbb8614f9cc4&chksm=fba04e18ccd7c70e9add7729419d6b6f94ac0436856901ba8179ec08b188782b1e7e69662490#rd

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感谢思维导图作者

Echo,北漂北外的江南人,央视boys and girls 的粉丝儿~


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 The root of the problem

问题的根源

英文部分选自经济学人20200704期文艺版块

Phylloxera

葡萄根瘤蚜


The root of the problem

问题的根源


A pest’s genome reveals its past and shines light on how to deal with it in future

害虫基因组不仅能揭示它的过去,还为未来的虫害防治指明了方向


A century and a half ago an alien insect alighted in Europe. It displaced millions, ruined local economies and forced scientists, politicians and ordinary folk into a frenzy of defensive activity. Phylloxera, a member of the group known to entomologists as Hemiptera, or “true” bugs (as opposed to all the other critters known colloquially as bugs), appeared in France in the 1860s and proceeded to eat its way through many of the Old World’s vines.


一个半世纪以前,一种外来昆虫入侵欧洲。它的到来让数百万人流离失所,当地经济受到破坏,也迫使科学家、政治家和普通民众展开了一场疯狂的防虫行动。这种昆虫名为葡萄根瘤蚜,是昆虫学家已知的半翅类昆虫的一种,它是真害虫,(与其他所有俗称的虫子完全不同)19世纪60年代,这种虫子曾在法国出现,接着啃遍旧世界(老牌葡萄种植地区)地区的许多葡萄藤。


It then spread to pastures new. It was first recorded in Australia in 1875 and in South Africa in 1886, threatening similar devastation to the vineyards of those European colonies. Eventually, French and American scientists found a solution by grafting European vines onto the imported roots of American ones. Now, a more recent group of French and American researchers report in BMC Biology that they have sequenced phylloxera’s genome, and that hidden within this lie clues to the insect’s origins and spread.


紧接着,它们扩散到新晋的葡萄酒产地。1875澳大利亚首次记录了它的出现,然后1886入侵南非,在这些欧洲殖民地,它们对葡萄园的破坏程度堪比之前。最终,法国和美国的科学家找到一个解决办法:将欧洲的葡萄藤嫁接到从美洲引进的葡萄藤根部。现在,新一批的法国和美国研究者在《BMC生物》发表报告称,他们已经发现葡萄根瘤的基因序列,而该信息则包含着着关于该虫的起源和传播的线索。


Nineteenth-century agronomists rapidly divined that phylloxera had come from North America. That fact provided the rationale behind their graft-based answer to the problem—which is still all that stands between cultivated vines and the bug. This is that having co-evolved with the insect, American vines had developed resistance to it. But where exactly it came from on that continent, nobody knew. One theory held British gardeners responsible because they had brought wild American vines to Europe for decorative purposes. From Britain, this theory went, phylloxera reached the European mainland via the south of France, the first place where it devastated vineyards. That, though, turns out to be a calumny against les Anglais.


19世纪,农学家们很快发现,葡萄根瘤蚜来自北美。这一事实为他们采用嫁接的方法来抵御虫害提供了论据,而嫁接法依然是防止葡萄藤遭受根瘤蚜侵害的唯一方法。美洲葡萄藤与根瘤蚜共同进化,从而对根瘤蚜产生抵抗力。但是这种虫子究竟起源于北美大陆的具体什么地方?这一点无人知晓。有理论认为,这要归咎于英国园丁,他们曾将野生的美洲葡萄藤带回欧洲做装饰,就这样葡萄根瘤蚜从英国途经南法传到欧洲大陆,而南法是葡萄园首次受到根瘤蚜侵害的地方。不过这种理论其实是在污蔑英国人。


Bugs in the system

系统漏洞


By comparing the genetic sequence of European phylloxera with those of populations from wild vines in the United States, Claude Rispe and Fabrice Legeai of the French National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment (INRAE) and their colleagues have narrowed the search to the once-French territory of the Mississippi Valley (the upper Mississippi, to be precise—though one of the paper’s authors, Paul Nabity of the University of California, Riverside, plans to keep following the river south, sampling phylloxera as he goes, so the matter is not closed). The evidence is that there is a striking similarity between the European sequence and that of two phylloxera populations on a wild vine called Vitis riparia in Wisconsin and Illinois. This is enough, Dr Nabity says, to indicate that V. riparia was the bug’s original host and the upper Midwest its source.


通过比较欧洲葡萄根瘤蚜和美国野生葡萄藤根瘤蚜的基因序列,法国国立农业、食品和环境研究所(INRAE)的克劳德李斯佩(Claude Rispe)和法布里斯勒杰艾(Fabrice Legeai)团队将搜索范围缩小到前法属密西西比河谷地区(准确地说,是密西西比河上游。不过其中一位作者:加州大学河湾分校的保罗纳比蒂(Paul Nabity),计划继续沿河南下,一路采集蚜虫样本,所以文章的观点尚未有定论)。有证据表明,在威斯康星以及伊利诺伊的野生河岸葡萄(Vitis riparia)种群中,发现了两个与欧洲葡萄根瘤蚜基因序列高度相似的葡萄根瘤蚜群落。纳比蒂博士认为,这一证据足以表明,野生河岸葡萄是葡萄根瘤蚜的原始宿主,根瘤蚜最早源于美国中西部的北部地区。


图片内容:绿色区域为1750年时的法国领地。在伊利诺伊和威斯康星(两处红点位置),发现了祖代葡萄根瘤蚜群落。深蓝色线条代表密西西比河

If correct, says François Delmotte, who works at INRAE’s campus in Bordeaux and is one of the project’s leaders, the finding fits with certain historical facts. Though the Mississippi valley was annexed from France by Britain and Spain in the mid-18th century, and passed eventually to the United States, many French settlers remained in the area and France retained trading links, particularly with New Orleans, for a long time. Dr Delmotte says it would not be surprising if, in the 19th-century age of steamships and naturalists, phylloxera survived on cuttings of V. riparia stored in a cool, dry hold to be brought to a botanical garden in France. Or, even more ironically, that it was imported with vines destined to cure their French cousins of an earlier imported blight—powdery mildew.


INRAE波尔多分院的弗朗索瓦戴尔莫特(Francois Delmotte)是该项目的带头人之一,他认为如果上述结论为真,那某些史实就能说得通了18世纪中叶,英国和西班牙从法国手里夺走了密西西比河谷流域,最后这一区域成为了美国的一部分。尽管如此,河谷地区仍有许多法国籍居民,而且法国和整片河谷地区,尤其是和新奥尔良,有长期的贸易往来。戴尔莫特博士称,在蒸汽船兴起和博物学家遍布的19世纪,葡萄根瘤蚜通过存储在干燥凉爽容器中的河岸葡萄植株被带回法国的植物园,并存活下来,这也并不是什么稀奇的事。或者,更具讽刺意味的是,这些葡萄根瘤蚜注定要与葡萄藤一同引进法国,用于应对法国的葡萄植株面临的由更早期生物入侵而带来的灾难——白粉病。


注:

白粉病(powdery mildew),一种由白粉菌(Erysiphe necator)引起的植物疾病,症状表现为叶片正反两面均布满白色或灰色的斑点,并蔓延至藤茎部。该疾病会导致作物减产、品质下降、藤茎生长受阻和耐寒能力下降。白粉菌为一种真菌,靠播撒孢子繁殖。改善通风和适当降低空气湿度有助于预防白粉病,而治疗该病可采用喷洒抗真菌剂、喷洒稀释后的苏打水等方法。


The genetic diversity of European phylloxera is limited compared with that of its North American counterpart, says Dr Rispe. That points to there having been only one or two introductions, with subsequent diffusion of the pest by people and their agricultural machines. However, another of the paper’s authors, Astrid Forneck of the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna, says it remains a possibility that a separate introduction infested eastern Europe, perhaps via the Austro-Hungarian empire’s experimental vineyards at Klosterneuburg.


李斯佩Rispe)博士指出,欧洲根瘤蚜的基因多样性不如北美根瘤蚜。这表明这种害虫只被引入过一两种,随后通过人类活动及农业机器(的应用)扩散开来。但该论文的另一位作者,维也纳自然资源与生命科学大学的阿斯特丽德弗奈克(Astrid Forneck)提出,东欧的虫害也有可能另起源于奥匈帝国克洛斯特新堡的实验葡萄园。


In America phylloxera attacks wild vines’ leaves. It stimulates them to create galls in which it can live and feed, but which, from the plant’s point of view, serve to isolate the problem. When it attacks cultivated vines, though, it goes for the roots. These root galls open a plant to infection by bacteria and fungi, leading to its death. For a long time, researchers hunted for a single molecule, produced by the insect, that stimulated the growth of galls. Blocking the action of this, they hoped, would phylloxera-proof all vines. But here the sequencing project produced a disappointment. There is no such molecule. The researchers identified many genes—2,300 of them, more than a tenth of the insect’s genome—that encode proteins which it secretes while feeding on the vine. These enable it to evade the plant’s immune system while diverting resources from its host.


美洲大陆上,根瘤蚜攻击野生葡萄藤蔓的叶子,刺激藤蔓产生自己可以赖以生存和进食的虫瘿。但从植物的角度来说,这也可以帮助隔离虫害。但在人工栽培的葡萄藤中,根瘤蚜攻击的则是根部。根部产生的虫瘿会使植物受到细菌和真菌的感染,导致其死亡。长久以来,科研者在寻找由根瘤蚜产生能促进虫瘿形成的单分子,他们希望通过阻断这一成分,使葡萄藤蔓免受根瘤蚜虫的侵害。但这一次的基因测序研究让他们大失所望:这样的单分子并不存在。研究人员识别了高达2300个基因(这超过了根瘤蚜全基因的十分之一),这些基因会在根瘤蚜寄宿葡萄藤蔓时产生蛋白质,而这些(蛋白质)使得根瘤蚜能够避开植物的免疫系统,将资源转移出去。


The gall of it

虫瘿


The work now begins of teasing out what each of those genes does, and, ultimately, how phylloxera manipulates a plant and adapts to a new host. This information may in turn generate new weapons against the creature. That could be valuable in parts of viticulture’s New World, such as Australia, where vines remain ungrafted and phylloxera is still a problem. It might also help if the insect ever evolves the ability to evade the natural resistance of American vine roots that currently stands between European growers and disaster. For Dr Forneck, this prospect is not outlandish. The insect is already adapting to a warmer world, and shifting its range. Further shifts in its physiology are perfectly possible.


现在的工作是要梳理出每个基因的作用,并最终弄清楚根瘤蚜是如何控制植物并适应新宿主的。这些信息可以用来研发抵御该虫害的新武器,而这对葡萄种植的新世界地区(新兴的葡萄种植地区)是十分重要的。比如在澳大利亚,葡萄藤蔓尚未嫁接,而根瘤蚜也依旧是个问题。如果根瘤蚜通过进化,能够避开美洲葡萄藤蔓根部对它的天然抵抗力,这些信息也许亦能帮助通过嫁接法抵抗虫害的欧洲种植者。对于弗奈克(Forneck)博士来说,这一假设并非空穴来风。根瘤蚜已经适应变暖的环境,并改变了自己的活动范围,因此进一步产生生理上的转变是完全可能的。


翻译组:

无忌,心怀梦想不断努力的理想主义男孩

Nikolai爱想象的小双鱼,蒙特雷候补生AKB49
Echo
,北漂北外的江南人,央视boys and girls 的粉丝儿
Piggy
,爱吃鱼,爱跳舞,爱睡回笼觉的小能猫,NUS食品系


校核组:

Rachel学理工科,爱跳芭蕾,热爱文艺的非典型翻译
Iris 少女心爆棚的前职场老阿姨,现国际女子修道院MTIer,外刊爱好者

Helen,女,坐标武汉,职业翻译,翻硕已毕业英语二笔二口,爱好陶笛洞箫古诗词


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观点|评论|思考


本周感想

Lecea, 坚信腹有诗书气自华的追梦girl

病虫害一直以来都是种植业的老大难问题,自古以来,防治病虫害的方法无非就那么几种:物理防治、生物防治、化学防治等等。


物理防治和生物防治基本不会造成土壤以及作物污染,但成本周期太长且不适合大范围推广。化学防治见效快,但作物抗药性、化学残留以及土壤污染都是大问题。因此,这些都是治标不治本的权宜之计。


我国自古以来就是农业大国,农作物的安危关系着十几亿人口的粮食问题,因此科学家们也是兢兢业业,这不前段时间中科院的农学博士还因为常年呆在地里与作物为伍被当成教育孩子的反面教材。


虽说我国已实现粮食自给,但离实现绿色农业仍然道阻且长。目前的农业发展很大程度上仍然是依赖于大型农机具、化肥、农药的黑色农业。但与此同时,我们也应该看到要扭转这种态势,最终还是要靠科学的进一步发展。文章中提到的基因研究也不是什么新技术了,近年来关于基因工程也是争议不断。虽说现目前基因工程不太成熟,但在农业领域,通过基因研究了解害虫的前世今生,然后对症下药,从源头上解决问题,实现病虫害的高效防治,找到一种既不污染土壤和作物,还能一劳永逸的方法。


有人说农业文明的绿色发展是低技术的绿色发展,工业文明的发展是黑色发展,但借助于日新月异的科学技术,实现农业文明的高科技绿色发展指日可待。


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