Environment shapes ants' 'personality' 環境塑造螞蟻的"性格"

媒體英語會帶大家一起學習 BBC 撰稿人在報道世界大事時常用到的單詞和短語。

美國的一項研究顯示，蟻群也有個性，而這種個性的形成是由環境所致。這項刊登在《皇家學會學報B輯》(Proceedings of the Royal Society B )上的研究報告說，許多由數以千百計螞蟻組成的螞蟻群顯示了不同的行為表現，這點與人類非常相似。以下是BBC記者 Jonathan Webb的報道：

According to ecologists, having a personality means showing a consistent pattern of behaviour over time. Researchers from the University of Arizona studied colonies of rock ants across the western US, both by following them in the wild and by taking whole colonies back to the lab.

They found that certain risky behaviours, like foraging widely for food and responding aggressively to a threat, went together and colonies further north tended to take more of these risks.

The study suggests those more adventurous personalities could be an adaptation to the limited window of activity left by the long, snowy northern winter.