plankton浮游生物

plankton浮游生物

plankton

　　Scattered through the seas of the world are billions of tons of small plants and animals called plankton. Most of these plants and animals are too small for the human eye to see. They drift about lazily with the currents, providing a basic food for many larger animals. Plankton has been described as the equivalent of the grasses that grow on the dry land continents, and the comparison is an appropriate one. In potential food value however,plankton far outweighs that of the land grasses. One scientist has estimated that while grasses of the world produce about 49 billion tons of valuable carbohydrates each year. The sea’s plankton generates more than twice as much.
　　Despite its enormous food potential, little effort was made until recently to farm plankton as we farm grasses on land. Now marine scientists have at last begun to study this possibility, especially as the sea’s resources loom even more important as a means of feeding an expanding world population.
　　No one yet has seriously suggested that “planktonburgers” may soon become popular around the world. As a possible farmed supplementary food source, however, plankton is gaining considerable interest among marine scientists.
　　One type of plankton that seems to have great harvest possibilities is a tiny shrimplike creature called krill. Growing to two or three inches long, krill provide the major food for the giant blue whale, the largest animal ever to inhabit the Earth. Realizing that this whale may grow 100 feet and weigh 150 tons at maturity, it is not surprising that each one devours more than one ton of krill daily.
　　Krill swim about just below the surface in huge schools sometimes miles wide, mainly in the cold Antarctic. Because of their pink color, they often appear as a solid reddish mass when viewed from a ship or from the air. Krill are very high in food value. A pound of these crustaceans contains about 460 calories—about the same as shrimp or lobster, to which they are related.
　　If the krill can feed such huge creatures as whales, many scientists reason, they must certainly be contenders as new food source for humans.

浮游生物

　　在全世界的海洋中散布着几十亿吨的小型植物和动物，称为浮游生物。这些植物和动物中的大多数对于人眼来说太小了。它们懒洋洋地漂流，为许多较大的动物提供了基本的食物。浮游生物被描述为在陆地上生长的草，这种比喻是合适的。然而，在潜在的食物价值中，浮游生物远远超过了陆地草的价值。一位科学家估计，世界上的牧草每年都会产生约49亿吨的有价值的碳水化合物。海洋的浮游生物产生了两倍多。
　　尽管有巨大的食物潜力，但直到最近，在我们在陆地上种植草的时候，我们还没有做出什么努力来种植浮游生物。现在，海洋科学家终于开始研究这种可能性，特别是随着海洋资源作为喂养不断扩大的世界人口的手段变得更加重要。
　　没有人认真地提出，“浮游的汉堡”可能很快就会在世界各地流行。然而，作为一种可能的养殖补充食物来源，浮游生物在海洋科学家中引起了相当大的兴趣。
　　一种似乎有很大收获可能性的浮游生物是一种叫做磷虾的微小的虾类生物。长到两三英寸长的磷虾为巨型蓝鲸提供了主要食物，它是有史以来居住在地球上的最大的动物。意识到这条鲸鱼可能成长100英尺，重达150吨，每天吃一吨以上的磷虾就不足为奇了。
　　磷虾在大学里的几英里宽的水面下游动，主要是在寒冷的南极。由于它们的粉红色，当从船上或从空中观看时，它们通常显示为固态的淡红色块。磷虾的食物价值很高。一磅这些甲壳类动物含有大约460卡路里——大约与虾或龙虾差不多，与它们有关。
　　如果磷虾能像鲸鱼那样喂养这样巨大的生物，许多科学家认为，他们肯定是人类的新食物来源。