演講MP3+雙語文稿:真菌對市場經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)的啟示

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【演講者及介紹】Toby Kiers

生物行為科學(xué)家基爾獲得了加州大學(xué)戴維斯分校的博士學(xué)位，現(xiàn)在是荷蘭VU阿姆斯特丹的進(jìn)化生物學(xué)教授。她在中美洲、非洲、亞洲、歐洲和北美進(jìn)行了研究，并積極參與全球農(nóng)業(yè)政策和保護(hù)工作。

【演講主題】真菌對市場和經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)的啟示

【中英文字幕】

翻譯者 psjmz mz 校對者 Jiasi Hao

So I stand before you as an evolutionarybiologist, a professor of evolutionary biology, which sounds like a ratherfancy title, if I may say so myself. And I'm going to talk about two topicsthat aren't normally talked about together, and that's market economies andfungi. Or is it fun-GUY, or, as we say in Europe now, fun-GEE? There's still noconsensus on how to say this word.

我作為進(jìn)化生物學(xué)家站在你們面前， 進(jìn)化生物學(xué)教授， 這個頭銜聽起來很花哨， 如果我可以如此自稱的話。 我要打算討論兩個 通常不被放在一起討論的話題， 那就是市場經(jīng)濟(jì)和真菌。 （英語發(fā)音）或叫“番菌（ fun-GUY）”，或在歐洲的讀法，“番基（fun-GEE）“？人們尚未對這個詞的發(fā)音取得共識。

So I want you to imagine a market economythat's 400 million years old, one that's so ubiquitous that it operates inalmost every ecosystem of the world, so huge that it can connect millions oftraders simultaneously, and so persistent that it survived mass extinctions.It's here, right now, under our feet. You just can't see it. And unlike humaneconomies that rely on cognition to make decisions, traders in this market,they beg, borrow, steal, cheat, all in the absence of thought.

我想讓你們想象一個長達(dá)4億年之久的市場經(jīng)濟(jì)， 這種市場經(jīng)濟(jì)無處不在地存在 世界上的每一個生態(tài)系統(tǒng)中， 它龐大到能夠同時且持久地連接 數(shù)百萬的交易方 它頑強(qiáng)到可從數(shù)場大滅絕中生存下來。 它就在這里，就在此刻，在我們腳下。 你只是看不見。 跟人類市場經(jīng)濟(jì) 依靠認(rèn)知來做決定不同， 這個市場中的交易員， 它們乞討，借取，偷竊，欺騙， 全都在無思想的情況下發(fā)生。

So hidden from our eyes, plant roots arecolonized by a fungus called arbuscule mycorrhizae. Now the fungus forms thesecomplex networks underground of fine filaments thinner than even threads ofcotton. So follow one of these fungi, and it connects multiple plantssimultaneously. You can think of it as an underground subway system, where eachroot is a station, where resources are loaded and unloaded. And it's also verydense, so roughly the length of many meters, even a kilometer, in a single gramof dirt. So that's the length of 10 football fields in just a thimbleful of soil.And it's everywhere. So if you passed over a tree, a shrub, a vine, even a tinyweed, you passed over a mycorrhizal network. Roughly 80 percent of all plantspecies are associated with these mycorrhizal fungi.

隱藏在我們的眼皮底下，植物的根莖被一種叫做叢枝菌根的真菌定殖?，F(xiàn)在真菌在地下形成的這些復(fù)雜網(wǎng)絡(luò)， 它們的這些細(xì)絲比棉線還細(xì)。 所以順著其中一種真菌， 它同時連接著多個植物。 你可以把它想成地下鐵系統(tǒng)， 每個根是一個站， 在那里資源被裝載和卸載。 并且它非常緊密， 在一克土里，大概有幾米長， 甚至一公里長。 在一丁點的土壤里， 真菌網(wǎng)絡(luò)細(xì)絲 就有10個足球場長。 并且它無處不在。 所以如果你經(jīng)過一棵樹，一片灌木， 一條藤蔓，甚至是一棵小草， 你就穿越過了一個菌根網(wǎng)絡(luò)。 大概 80% 的植物品種 與這些菌根真菌連接。

So what does a root covered in fungi haveto do with our global economy? And why as an evolutionary biologist have Ispent the last 10 years of my life learning economic jargon? Well, the firstthing you need to understand is that trade deals made by plant and fungalpartners are surprisingly similar to those made by us, but perhaps even morestrategic. You see, plant and fungal partners, they're not exchanging stocksand bonds, they're exchanging essential resources, and for the fungus, that'ssugars and fats. It gets all of its carbon directly from the plant partner. Somuch carbon, so every year, roughly five billion tons of carbon from plants gointo this network underground. For the root, what they need is phosphorus andnitrogen, so by exchanging their carbon they get access to all of the nutrientscollected by that fungal network. So to make the trade, the fungus penetratesinto the root cell of the host and forms a tiny structure called an arbuscule,which is Latin for "little tree." Now, you can think of this as thephysical stock exchange of the trade market.

那么被真菌覆蓋的根莖和我們?nèi)蚪?jīng)濟(jì)有什么關(guān)系？我這個進(jìn)化生物學(xué)家為什么要花過去 10 年來研究經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)術(shù)語？你需要理解的第一件事是植物和真菌合作伙伴達(dá)成的貿(mào)易協(xié)議 和我們?nèi)祟愔贫ǖ馁Q(mào)易協(xié)定 非常相似， 但或許更具策略性。 你看，植物和真菌合作伙伴， 它們不交易股票和證券， 它們交換重要的資源。 對于真菌而言，那是糖和脂肪。 它所有的碳源都是直接從 植物伙伴那里獲得的。 如此大量的碳， 以至于每年，有大約 50 億噸的碳 從植物進(jìn)入到這個地下網(wǎng)絡(luò)。 對根莖而言，它們需要的是磷和氮， 因此，通過交換它們的碳， 它們能夠獲得真菌網(wǎng)絡(luò) 收集的所有營養(yǎng)。 所以為了達(dá)成交易， 真菌滲透到宿主的根細(xì)胞中 形成一個叫做叢枝的微小結(jié)構(gòu)， 在拉丁語中是“小樹”的意思。 現(xiàn)在，你可以把這個想成 貿(mào)易市場中的實體的 證券交易所。

So up until now, it seems very harmonious.Right? I scratch your back, you scratch mine, both partners get what they need.But here is where we need to pause and understand the power of evolution andnatural selection. You see, there's no room for amateur traders on this market.Making the right trade strategy determines who lives and who dies.

所以到目前為止，一切看似都很和諧。對吧？我給你撓撓背，你也給我撓撓， 雙方都各得所需。 但這里我們需要暫停一下， 來了解進(jìn)化和自然選擇的力量。 在這個市場可沒有 業(yè)余交易員的位置。 正確交易策略的制定 決定著誰活誰死。

Now, I use the word strategy, but of courseplant and fungi, they don't have brains. They're making these exchanges in theabsence of anything that we would consider as thought. But, as scientists, weuse behavioral terms such as strategy to describe behaviors to certainconditions, actions and reactions that are actually programmed into the DNA ofthe organism.

現(xiàn)在，我使用“策略”這個詞，但當(dāng)然植物和真菌，它們沒有大腦。 它們的這些策略 是在我們認(rèn)為的認(rèn)知缺失 的情況下制定出的。 但，作為科學(xué)家， 我們使用行為術(shù)語， 諸如“策略” 來描述特定情況下 被編入生物體 DNA 的 行為，動作和反應(yīng)。

So I started studying these tradestrategies when I was 19 years old and I was living in the tropical rainforestsof Panama. Now, everybody at the time was interested in this incredible diversityaboveground. And it was hyperdiversity. These are tropical rainforests. But Iwas interested in the complexity belowground. We knew that the networksexisted, and we knew they were important, and I'm going to say it again, byimportant I mean important, so the basis of all plant nutrition for all thediversity that you do see aboveground. But at the time, we didn't know howthese networks worked. We didn't know how they functioned. Why did only certainplants interact with certain fungi? So fast-forward to when I started my owngroup, and we really began to play with this trade market. You see, we wouldmanipulate conditions. We would create a good trading partner by growing aplant in the sun and a poor trading partner by growing it in the shade. Wewould then connect these with a fungal network. And we found that the fungiwere consistently good at discriminating among good and bad trading partners.They would allocate more resources to the host plant giving them more carbon.

我是在 19 歲的時候開始研究這些交易策略的，我當(dāng)時住在巴拿馬的熱帶雨林。在當(dāng)時，每個人都對地面上的這種令人驚詫的多樣性而感興趣。它確實極其多樣。這些可是熱帶雨林。但我的興趣， 卻在于地下的復(fù)雜性。 我們知道這些網(wǎng)絡(luò)的存在， 我們知道它們很重要， 并且我要再說一次， “重要”我的意思是重要， 是你在地面上看到的 所有多樣植物的營養(yǎng)基礎(chǔ)。 但那時，我們不知道 這些網(wǎng)絡(luò)是如何運(yùn)作的。 我們不知道它們是如何起作用的。 為什么只有特定的植物 會和特定的真菌交互。 所以快進(jìn)到我成立小組的時候， 于是我們真正開始涉足 這個交易網(wǎng)絡(luò)。 你看，我們會操縱條件。 我們會把植物種在陽光下 來創(chuàng)建一位良好的交易伙伴， 也會在陰暗環(huán)境中種植植物， 以創(chuàng)建一位糟糕的交易伙伴。 我們?nèi)缓髮⑦@些植物跟 一個真菌網(wǎng)絡(luò)連接。 我們發(fā)現(xiàn)：真菌一直很擅長 識別貿(mào)易伙伴的好壞。 它們會分配更多的資源給 能回饋自己更多碳的寄主植物。

Now, we would run the reciprocalexperiments where we would inoculate a host plant with good and bad fungi, andthey were also good at discriminating between these trade partners. So what youhave there is the perfect conditions for a market to emerge. It's a simplemarket, but it's a market nonetheless, where the better trading partner isconsistently favored.

如今，我們也進(jìn)行了交互實驗，讓宿主植物接種有益菌和有害菌，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)：它們也非常擅長區(qū)分交易伙伴。 這里有著市場出現(xiàn)的完美條件。 這是個簡單的市場， 但它仍然是個市場， 在這個市場中， 更好的交易伙伴總是受到偏愛。

But is it a fair market? Now this is whereyou need to understand that, like humans, plants and fungi are incrediblyopportunistic. There's evidence that the fungus, once it penetrates into theplant cell, it can actually hijack the plant's own nutrient uptake system. Itdoes this by suppressing the plant's own ability to take up nutrients from thesoil. So this creates a dependency of the plant on the fungus. It's a falseaddiction, of sorts, whereby the plant has to feed the fungus just to getaccess to the resources right around its own root. There's also evidence thatthe fungi are good at inflating the price of nutrients. They do this byextracting the nutrients from the soil, but then rather than trading them withthe host, they hoard them in their network, so this makes them unavailable tothe plant and other competing fungi. So basic economics, as resourceavailability goes down, the value goes up. The plant is forced to pay more forthe same amount of resources.

但這是個公平的市場嗎？現(xiàn)在這是你需要理解的，跟人類類似， 植物和真菌都是不可思議的 機(jī)會主義者。 有證據(jù)表明，真菌一旦 它滲透進(jìn)植物細(xì)胞中， 它其實會劫持植物自己 的營養(yǎng)攝取系統(tǒng)。 它通過抑制植物自身 從土壤中吸收養(yǎng)分的能力 來做到這一點。 于是這造成了植物對真菌的依賴。 這有點是那種虛假的上癮， 也就是說，植物必須為真菌提供養(yǎng)料， 才能獲得自己根莖周圍的營養(yǎng)資源。 也有證據(jù)表明，真菌很擅長 抬高營養(yǎng)物質(zhì)的價格。 通過吸收土壤中的養(yǎng)分， 它們并不選擇與其跟宿主交換， 而是將養(yǎng)分存儲在自己的網(wǎng)絡(luò)中， 這就使植物和其他競爭真菌 沒法獲得這些養(yǎng)分。 這是基本的經(jīng)濟(jì)學(xué)， 隨著資源獲取的難度上升， 其價值上升。 植物被迫為同樣數(shù)量的資源 支付更多。

But it's not all in favor of the fungus.Plants can be extremely cunning as well. There are some orchids -- and I alwaysthink orchids somehow seem like the most devious of the plant species in theworld -- and there are some orchids that just tap directly into the network andsteal all their carbon. So these orchids, they don't even make green leaves tophotosynthesize. They're just white. So rather than photosynthesizing, tap intothe network, steal the carbon and give nothing in return.

但這并非全有益于真菌。植物也可以非常狡猾。有一些蘭花—— 我總覺得蘭花像是地球上 最陰險狡猾的物種 —— 有一些蘭花 它們直接進(jìn)入真菌網(wǎng)絡(luò)， 并偷走所有的碳。 這些蘭花，它們甚至 不生長綠葉來進(jìn)行光合作用。 它們就是純白的。 所以它不是通過光合作用， 而是進(jìn)入網(wǎng)絡(luò)， 偷走碳 并從不回報。

Now I think it's fair to say that thesetypes of parasites also flourish in our human markets. So as we began to decodethese strategies, we learned some lessons. And the first one was that there'sno altruism in this system. There's no trade favors. We don't see strongevidence of the fungus helping dying or struggling plants unless it directlybenefits the fungus itself.

現(xiàn)在我覺得以公平來講，這樣的寄生生物 在人類市場中也不少。 隨著我們對這些策略的解碼， 我們也學(xué)到了一些東西。 第一點是這個系統(tǒng) 沒有利他主義， 沒有貿(mào)易優(yōu)惠。 我們沒有看到顯著的的證據(jù)表明 真菌會幫助將死 或處于困境的植物， 除非這跟真菌的直接利益相關(guān)。

Now I'm not saying if this is good or bad.Unlike humans, a fungus, of course, cannot judge its own morality. And as abiologist, I'm not advocating for these types of ruthless neoliberal marketdynamics enacted by the fungi. But the trade system, it provides us with abenchmark to study what an economy looks like when it's been shaped by naturalselection for hundreds of millions of years in the absence of morality, whenstrategies are just based on the gathering and processing of information,uncontaminated by cognition: no jealousy, no spite, but no hope, no joy.

我不評論這個好還是壞。與人類不同， 真菌自然無法評判自己的道德。 而且作為一個生物學(xué)家， 我也不倡議真菌所執(zhí)行的這種無情的 新自由主義市場動態(tài)。 但交易系統(tǒng)， 它為我們提供了一個 研究市場經(jīng)濟(jì)模樣的基準(zhǔn)， 當(dāng)它在道德缺失的環(huán)境下 被幾億年的自然選擇 所塑造時， 當(dāng)策略僅僅基于 收集和處理信息， 不受認(rèn)知影響： 沒有妒忌，沒有怨恨， 但沒有希望，也沒有快樂。

So we've made progress in decoding the mostbasic trade principles at this point, but as scientists we always want to takeit one step further, and we're interested in more complex economic dilemmas.And specifically we're interested in the effects of inequality.

所以我們此刻已經(jīng)解碼了最基本的交易原則，但作為科學(xué)家， 我們總是想要再進(jìn)一步， 我們感興趣的是更復(fù)雜的 經(jīng)濟(jì)兩難的窘境。 我們尤其感興趣不平等的影響。

So inequality has really become a definingfeature of today's economic landscape. But the challenges of inequality are notunique to the human world. I think as humans we tend to think that everything'sunique to us, but organisms in nature must face relentless variation in theiraccess to resources.

不平等真的成為了今天經(jīng)濟(jì)圖景中 一個決定性特征。 但不平等的挑戰(zhàn) 不是人類社會所特有的。 作為人類，我們傾向于 認(rèn)為我們一切都是獨一無二的， 但是自然界的生物 必須要面對不斷變化以獲取資源。

How does a fungus that can again be meterslong change its trade strategy when it's exposed simultaneously to a rich patchand a poor patch? And, more generally, how do organisms in nature use trade totheir advantage when they're faced with uncertainty in terms of their access toresources?

當(dāng)一種真菌同時暴露在一塊肥沃的和一塊貧瘠的土地上時，它是如何改變自己的交易策略的呢？并且，更普遍的，自然界中的有機(jī)體在面對獲取資源的不確定性時，是如何利用交易來為自己牟取資源？

Here's where I have to let you in on asecret: studying trade underground is incredibly difficult. You can't see whereor when important trade deals take place. So our group helped pioneer a method,a technology, whereby we could tag nutrients with nanoparticles, fluorescingnanoparticles called quantum dots. What the quantum dots allow us to do isactually light up the nutrients so we can visually track their movements acrossthe fungal network and into the host root. So this allows us finally to see theunseen, so we can study how fungi bargain at a small scale with their planthosts. So to study inequality, we exposed a fungal network to these varyingconcentrations of fluorescing phosphorus, mimicking patches of abundance andscarcity across this artificial landscape. We then carefully quantified fungaltrade. And we found two things.

這里我要告訴你們一個秘密：研究地下交換網(wǎng)絡(luò)非常困難。你不知道在何處與何時重要的交易會發(fā)生。于是我們團(tuán)隊幫助開拓了一種方法，一種技術(shù)，用納米顆粒標(biāo)記營養(yǎng)物質(zhì)，熒光納米顆粒叫做量子點。這些量子點可以讓我們點亮營養(yǎng)物質(zhì)， 這樣我們就能視覺監(jiān)測 它們在真菌網(wǎng)絡(luò) 到宿主根莖的運(yùn)動。 這讓我們終于能夠看到 原本看不到的東西， 于是我們能夠研究真菌 在微觀上是如何跟它們的植物宿主議價的。 所以為了研究不平等， 我們將一個真菌網(wǎng)絡(luò) 暴露在這些不同濃度的熒光磷中， 在這片人工景觀中模擬 肥沃與貧瘠的小塊土地。 然后我們仔細(xì)地量化真菌的交易。 我們發(fā)現(xiàn)了兩件事情。

The first thing we found was thatinequality encouraged the fungus to trade more. So I can use the word"encouraged" or "stimulated" or "forced," but thebottom line is that compared to control conditions, inequality was associatedwith higher levels of trade. This is important, because it suggests thatevolving a trade partnership in nature can help organisms cope with theuncertainty of accessing resources.

我們發(fā)現(xiàn)的第一件事是不平等會鼓勵真菌交易更多。所以我可以使用 “鼓勵”、“刺激”或“迫使”這樣的詞。 但基本結(jié)論是 與控制條件相比， 不平等與更高水平的交換有關(guān)。 這很重要， 因為這說明 在自然中積極發(fā)展交易伙伴 可以幫助生物體 應(yīng)對資源獲取的不確定性。

Second, we found that, exposed toinequality, the fungus would move resources from the rich patch of the network,actively transport them to the poor side of the network. Now, of course, wecould see this because the patches were fluorescing in different colors. So atfirst, this result was incredibly puzzling. Was it to help the poor side of thenetwork? No. We found that the fungus gained more by first moving the resourcesto where demand was higher. Simply by changing where across the network thefungus was trading, it could manipulate the value of those resources.

第二，我們發(fā)現(xiàn)，在不平等條件下，真菌會將資源從網(wǎng)絡(luò)的肥沃部分積極地傳輸?shù)骄W(wǎng)絡(luò)的貧瘠部分。當(dāng)然，我們能夠看到這個是因為這兩塊土地呈現(xiàn)不同顏色。 所以起初， 這個結(jié)果真的非常令人費(fèi)解。 真菌是在幫助網(wǎng)絡(luò)中的貧瘠部分嗎？ 不是，我們發(fā)現(xiàn) 真菌通過將資源轉(zhuǎn)送到需求更高的地方 可以賺取更多。 只需要改變 真菌進(jìn)行交易資源的位置， 它就可以操縱這些資源的價值。

Now this stimulated us to really dig deeperinto how information is shared. It suggests a high level of sophistication, orat least a medium level of sophistication in an organism with no cognition. Howis it that a fungus can sense market conditions across its network and thenmake calculations of where and when to trade? So we wanted to look aboutinformation and how it's shared across this network, how the fungus integratescues.

這激發(fā)我們?nèi)ジ顚哟蔚赝诰蛐畔⑹侨绾喂蚕淼?。這現(xiàn)象暗示了 在一個不具備認(rèn)知能力的生物體中 具有的高度的復(fù)雜性， 或者至少中等程度的復(fù)雜性。 這個真菌是如何能夠感知到 自己網(wǎng)絡(luò)中的市場狀況 并且計算得出何時何地交易的？ 我們想要研究信息、 信息是如何在這整個網(wǎng)絡(luò)中共享的， 以及真菌是如何整合這些線索的。

So to do that, what you need to do is divedeep in and get a higher resolution into the network itself. We began to studycomplex flows inside the hyphal network. feet right now.

為找尋這些問題的答案，你需要做的是鉆的更深并拿到該網(wǎng)絡(luò)更高清晰度的成像。我們開始研究菌絲網(wǎng)絡(luò)內(nèi)部的復(fù)雜流動。

So we're working now with biophysicists totry to dissect this complexity. How is the fungus using these complex flowpatterns to share and process information and make these trade decisions? Arefungi better at making trade calculations than us?

我們現(xiàn)在和生物物理學(xué)家一起在嘗試剖析這種復(fù)雜性。真菌是如何利用這種復(fù)雜的流動模式 來分享和處理信息 從而去做這些交易決定的？ 真菌的交易計算的能力 比我們的強(qiáng)嗎？

Now here's where we can potentially borrowmodels from nature. We're increasingly reliant on computer algorithms to makeus profitable trades in split-second time scales. But computer algorithms andfungi, they both operate in similar, uncognitive ways. The fungi just happensto be a living machine.

這是我們可能可以從自然中借用的模型。我們?nèi)找嬉蕾囉?能讓我們在即刻盈利的 電腦算法。 但電腦算法和真菌， 它們同樣都以， 無認(rèn)知的方式運(yùn)行著。 真菌只是碰巧是個活體。

What would happen if we compare and competethe trading strategies of these two? Who would win? The tiny capitalist that'sbeen around since before and the fall of the dinosaurs?

如果我們讓這兩種交易策略進(jìn)行對比和競爭 會怎樣？ 誰會獲勝？ 這個在恐龍時代之前 就存在的小資本家？

My money is on the fungus.

我會給真菌下賭注。

Thank you.

謝謝。

(Applause)

（掌聲）