I'd like to start tonight by something completely different, asking you to join me by stepping off the land and jumping into the open ocean for a moment. 90 percent of the living space on the planet is in the open ocean, and it's where life -- the title of our seminar tonight -- it's where life began. And it's a lively and a lovely place, but we're rapidly changing the oceans with our -- not only with our overfishing, our irresponsible fishing, our adding of pollutants like fertilizer from our cropland, but also, most recently, with climate change, and Steve Schneider, I'm sure, will be going into greater detail on this. Now, as we continue to tinker with the oceans, more and more reports are predicting that the kinds of seas that we're creating will be conducive to low-energy type of animals, like jellyfish and bacteria. And this might be the kind of seas we're headed for.
今夜は独特の内容から始めたいと思います 少しの間 私と一緒に陸から離れて 海の中へ飛び込んでください 地球上の生命圏の9割は海であり 今夜の演題である命は そこから始まりました 活気があって 美しい場所です しかし乱獲や 無責任な漁法や 農地で使う化学肥料のような汚染物質を垂れ流すことで 急速に海を変化させています 最近は気候変動も問題です シュナイダー氏が詳細を明かしてくれるでしょう 海に手を加え続けることで クラゲやバクテリアのような低エネルギー生物が支配する海が 作られると予想するリポートが増えています 私達はこんな海に向かっているかもしれません
Now jellyfish are strangely hypnotic and beautiful, and you'll see lots of gorgeous ones at the aquarium on Friday, but they sting like hell, and jellyfish sushi and sashimi is just not going to fill you up. About 100 grams of jellyfish equals four calories. So it may be good for the waistline, but it probably won't keep you satiated for very long. And a sea that's just filled and teeming with jellyfish isn't very good for all the other creatures that live in the oceans, that is, unless you eat jellyfish. And this is this voracious predator launching a sneak attack on this poor little unsuspecting jellyfish there, a by-the-wind sailor. And that predator is the giant ocean sunfish, the Mola mola, whose primary prey are jellyfish.
クラゲはうっとりするほど美しく 金曜日には水族館で優美なクラゲがたくさん見られるでしょう でも クラゲに刺されると大変で クラゲの寿司や刺身は お腹の足しにはなりません クラゲ100gは4カロリーなんです ウエスト周りには良いかも知れませんが 腹持ちはおそらく良くないでしょう そして クラゲだらけの海は 他の海洋生物にも都合が良くありません でも クラゲを食べるなら別です これはカツオノカンムリというクラゲに 不意打ちを食わせる捕食動物です その捕食動物とは主にクラゲを食べる― 巨大マンボウのモラモラです
This animal is in "The Guinness World Book of Records" for being the world's heaviest bony fish. It reaches up to almost 5,000 pounds -- on a diet of jellyfish, primarily. And I think it's kind of a nice little cosmological convergence here that the Mola mola -- its common name is sunfish -- that its favorite food is the moon jelly. So it's kind of nice, the sun and the moon getting together this way, even if one is eating the other. Now this is typically how you see sunfish, this is where they get their common name. They like to sunbathe, can't blame them. They just lay out on the surface of the sea and most people think they're sick or lazy, but that's a typical behavior, they lie out and bask on the surface.
世界一重たい硬骨魚として ギネスブックに載っています クラゲを主食として 約2300kgまで成長します 宇宙につながる素敵な出会いがあるんです モラモラの英名はサン(太陽)フィッシュで 大好物は月クラゲです 太陽と月がこうやって一緒になるなんて素敵 片方が食べられてしまってもね これはよく見かけられる姿で 名前の由来はここにあります 日光浴好きなので もっともですね ただ海面に横たわるようにして 病気か怠け者と思われがちですが 日光浴は典型的な習性です
Their other name, Mola mola, is -- it sounds Hawaiian, but it's actually Latin for millstone, and that's attributable to their roundish, very bizarre, cut-off shape. It's as if, as they were growing, they just forgot the tail part. And that's actually what drew me to the Mola in the first place, was this terribly bizarre shape. You know, you look at sharks, and they're streamlined, and they're sleek, and you look at tuna, and they're like torpedoes -- they just give away their agenda. They're about migration and strength, and then you look at the sunfish.
別名モラモラは ハワイ語のように聞こえますが 由来は石臼を意味するラテン語です 丸くて パツンと切られたような風変わりな形で まるで成長期に尾を忘れたかのよう 私がマンボウに興味を持ち始めたのも このとっぴな形のためでした サメは流線形で なめらかですね マグロは魚雷のようで 目的が明確です いかにも回遊と力を見せる体つきです そしてマンボウを見るわけです
(Laughter)
(笑)
And this is just so elegantly mysterious, it's just -- it really kind of holds its cards a lot tighter than say, a tuna. So I was just intrigued with what -- you know, what is this animal's story? Well, as with anything in biology, nothing really makes sense except in the light of evolution. The Mola's no exception. They appeared shortly after the dinosaurs disappeared, 65 million years ago, at a time when whales still had legs, and they come from a rebellious little puffer fish faction -- oblige me a little Kipling-esque storytelling here. Of course evolution is somewhat random, and you know, about 55 million years ago there was this rebellious little puffer fish faction that said, oh, the heck with the coral reefs -- we're going to head to the high seas. And lots of generations, lots of tweaking and torquing, and we turn our puffer into the Mola. You know, if you give Mother Nature enough time, that is what she will produce.
これは何というか…上品なほど…神秘的で マグロほど手のうちを見せません それで どんな生き物かと魅せられました 生物の世界は進化論に沿わないと きちんとした説明はつきません マンボウも例外ではありません 6500万年前 恐竜が絶滅した後 間もなくして現れました クジラにまだ足があった時代です 反抗的なフグの仲間から来ています キップリングの話のようですね もちろん進化は行きあたりばったりですが 約5500万年前 反抗的なフグの仲間がいて こんな珊瑚礁なんて嫌だから 外洋に出るんだ と言いました 何世代にも渡って あれこれあった後に フグをマンボウに変えたのです 大自然に充分な時間を与えると こんなものが生まれます
They look -- maybe they look kind of prehistoric and unfinished, abridged perhaps, but in fact, in fact they are the -- they vie for the top position of the most evolutionarily-derived fish in the sea, right up there with flat fish. They're -- every single thing about that fish has been changed. And in terms of fishes -- fishes appeared 500 million years ago, and they're pretty modern, just 50 million years ago, so -- so interestingly, they give away their ancestry as they develop. They start as little eggs, and they're in "The Guinness World Book of Records" again for having the most number of eggs of any vertebrate on the planet. A single four-foot female had 300 million eggs, can carry 300 million eggs in her ovaries -- imagine -- and they get to be over 10 feet long. Imagine what a 10 foot one has. And from that little egg, they pass through this spiky little porcupine fish stage, reminiscent of their ancestry, and develop -- this is their little adolescent stage. They school as adolescents, and become behemoth loners as adults. That's a little diver up there in the corner.
マンボウの見た目は 生きた化石のようで 中途半端に 略された感じですが 実のところ マンボウは大自然に 順応して進化した魚の第一位を カレイ目の魚類と 張り合っています マンボウは何から何まで変化しました 5億年前からいる― 魚類の中で 5千年前に現れたマンボウは かなり近代的な仲間です 面白いことに 成長する過程で祖先の面影が現れます マンボウの卵は小さくて 地球上の脊椎動物で一番卵が多いことでも ギネスブックに載っています 1.2mの雌マンボウ一匹が3億個の卵を産みます 卵巣に3億個の卵です そして彼らは3m以上まで成長します 3mのマンボウが持つ卵を想像してみてください 小さな卵から 先祖の面影が残るヤマアラシのようなトゲがある段階を経て このような青年期に成長します 青年期には群れをなし 成魚になると巨大な一匹狼となります 右上にいるのはダイバーです
They're in "The Guinness World Book of Records" again for being the vertebrate growth champion of the world. From their little hatching size of their egg, into their little larval stage till they reach adulthood, they put on 600 million times an increase in weight. 600 million. Now imagine if you gave birth to a little baby, and you had to feed this thing. That would mean that your child, you would expect it to gain the weight of six Titanics. Now I don't know how you'd feed a child like that but -- we don't know how fast the Molas grow in the wild, but captive growth studies at the Monterey Bay Aquarium -- one of the first places to have them in captivity -- they had one that gained 800 lbs in 14 months. I said, now, that's a true American.
脊椎動物の中で成長する比率が一番大きいことでも ギネスブックにも載っています 小さな卵から孵り 幼生を経て 成魚になるまで体重は6億倍も増加します 6億倍です 小さな赤ちゃんを産んだと想像して 授乳するとしましょう その赤ちゃんがタイタニック6隻分まで増量するのと同じです どうやって育てればいいのでしょうね 自然界でマンボウがどれだけ早く成長するのか知りませんが モンテレーベイ水族館は マンボウの飼育研究を 初めて行った場所の一つで 14か月で360kg増量したマンボウがいました アメリカはそうでなきゃ!と思いました
(Laughter)
(笑)
(Applause)
(拍手)
So being a loner is a great thing, especially in today's seas, because schooling used to be salvation for fishes, but it's suicide for fishes now. But unfortunately Molas, even though they don't school, they still get caught in nets as by-catch. If we're going to save the world from total jellyfish domination, then we've got to figure out what the jellyfish predators -- how they live their lives, like the Mola. And unfortunately, they make up a large portion of the California by-catch -- up to 26 percent of the drift net. And in the Mediterranean, in the swordfish net fisheries, they make up up to 90 percent. So we've got to figure out how they're living their lives. And how do you do that? How do you do that with an animal -- very few places in the world. This is an open ocean creature. It knows no boundaries -- it doesn't go to land.
一匹狼は今日の海では特に良いことです 群れをなすのは魚にとって救いでありましたが 今では自殺行為です しかし不幸にもマンボウは群れをなさなくても 混獲されてしまいます 世界をクラゲだらけにしないためには マンボウのようなクラゲ捕食者の 生活を解明しなくてはいけません 不幸にも彼らはカリフォルニアの混獲を大きく占め 流し網漁の26%までになります そして地中海のメカジキ漁では 9割を占めています ですから彼らが いかに生きているのか解明しなくてはいけません 研究するにも 生息する場所も限られています マンボウは外洋生物です 囲いはなく 陸には上がりません
How do you get insight? How do you seduce an open ocean creature like that to spill its secrets? Well, there's some great new technology that has just recently become available, and it's just a boon for getting insight into open ocean animals. And it's pictured right here, that little tag up there. That little tag can record temperature, depth and light intensity, which is correlated with time, and from that we can get locations. And it can record this data for up to two years, and keep it in that tag, release at a pre-programmed time, float to the surface, upload all that data, that whole travelogue, to satellite, which relays it directly to our computers, and we've got that whole dataset. And we didn't even have -- we just had to tag the animal and then we went home and you know, sat at our desks. So the great thing about the Mola is that when we put the tag on them -- if you look up here -- that's streaming off, that's right where we put the tag. And it just so happens that's a parasite hanging off the Mola.
どうやって調べましょうか どういう手を使ったら外洋生物の秘密に近づけるでしょう 最近登場したばかりの 素晴らしい技術があって 海洋生物を観察するには大いに役立ちます この写真で見えるように小さな発信機をつけます この札は水温 水深 明るさを時間と共に記録し そこから場所を特定できるのです 2年分のデータを記録でき 指定した時間に札が外れて 水面に浮上し 旅行記データが 衛星経由で私達のコンピュータに直接届きます そして完全なデータ一式が得られます 魚に札をつけたら 我達はオフィスで待つわけです 好都合なことに こんな風に札をつけても マンボウは気づきません 実はこれはマンボウに寄生する生物です
Molas are infamous for carrying tons of parasites. They're just parasite hotels; even their parasites have parasites. I think Donne wrote a poem about that. But they have 40 genera of parasites, and so we figured just one more parasite won't be too much of a problem. And they happen to be a very good vehicle for carrying oceanographic equipment. They don't seem to mind, so far. So what are we trying to find out? We're focusing on the Pacific. We're tagging on the California coast, and we're tagging over in Taiwan and Japan. And we're interested in how these animals are using the currents, using temperature, using the open ocean, to live their lives. We'd love to tag in Monterey. Monterey is one of the few places in the world where Molas come in large numbers. Not this time of year -- it's more around October.
マンボウは大量の寄生生物がいることで有名で 寄生虫に寄生虫がいるほどで ダンがそんな詩を 書いていた気がします 彼らには寄生虫が40種類もいるので 一つ増えても害はないだろうと判断しました 彼らは海洋学装置を運ぶには非常に良い体をしています 迷惑がってるようでもありません 私達の研究は太平洋に着目し カリフォルニア沿岸と台湾や日本で札付けをして マンボウが海流 水温 外洋をどのように 生活の中で活用しているのか突きとめようとしています モンテレーでも観測したいです モンテレーは世界でもマンボウがたくさん見られる珍しい場所の一つです この時季ではなく10月頃です
And we'd love to tag here -- this is an aerial shot of Monterey -- but unfortunately, the Molas here end up looking like this because another one of our locals really likes Molas but in the wrong way. The California sea lion takes the Molas as soon as they come into the bay, rips off their fins, fashions them into the ultimate Frisbee, Mola style, and then tosses them back and forth. And I'm not exaggerating, it is just -- and sometimes they don't eat them, it's just spiteful. And you know, the locals think it's terrible behavior, it's just horrible watching this happen, day after day. The poor little Molas coming in, getting ripped to shreds, so we head down south, to San Diego. Not so many California sea lions down there. And the Molas there, you can find them with a spotter plane very easily, and they like to hang out under floating rafts of kelp. And under those kelps -- this is why the Molas come there because it's spa time for the Molas there. As soon as they get under those rafts of kelp, the exfoliating cleaner fish come. And they come and give the Molas -- you can see they strike this funny little position that says, "I'm not threatening, but I need a massage."
ここで観察したいのです これはモンテレーの航空写真ですが 残念なことに ここのマンボウはこんな状態 マンボウを悪い意味で好む生き物がいるからです カリフォルニアトドはマンボウが湾に入って来るなり ヒレをちぎってフリスビーのようにもて遊び あっちこっちへと投げるのです 大袈裟に言っているのではなく 必ずしも食べる訳ではないので意地悪です 地元住民は酷い行為だと思っています 毎日毎日 こんな事が起こるのを見るのはたまりません マンボウはやって来て ズタズタにやられるのですから 私達はサンディエゴまで南下しました そこにはトドはあまりいません そこにいるマンボウは観測機だと簡単に見つけられ 浮かんでいる海藻の下でのんびりするのを好みます 海藻の下に行くのは マンボウには保養だからです 海藻の下に行くとすぐに 掃除魚がやって来ます 彼らがやってくると マンボウはこんな面白い格好をして言うんです “ねぇねぇ マッサージお願い”
(Laughter)
(笑)
And they'll put their fins out and their eyes go in the back of their head, and the fish come up and they just clean, clean, clean -- because the Molas, you know, there's just a smorgasbord of parasites. And it's also a great place to go down south because the water's warmer, and the Molas are kind of friendly down there. I mean what other kind of fish, if you approach it right, will say, "Okay, scratch me right there." You truly can swim up to a Mola -- they're very gentle -- and if you approach them right, you can give them a scratch and they enjoy it. So we've also tagged one part of the Pacific; we've gone over to another part of the Pacific, and we've tagged in Taiwan, and we tagged in Japan. And over in these places, the Molas are caught in set nets that line these countries. And they're not thrown back as by-catch, they're eaten. We were served a nine-course meal of Mola after we tagged. Well, not the one we tagged! And everything from the kidney, to the testes, to the back bone, to the fin muscle to -- I think that ís pretty much the whole fish -- is eaten.
ヒレを開いて 白目をむくと 魚がやってきて お掃除します 沢山の寄生虫が食べ放題のバイキングです また 南下すると水も温かく 気持ちが良くて マンボウも人懐こいのです 近づいて行くと “なでてちょうだい” なんて言う魚は いないでしょう とても大人しいので マンボウに近づけます そばまで行って なでてあげると喜びます 太平洋のこちら側でも あちら側でも観測をしました 台湾と日本です そこでは 沿岸の定置網で捕まえると 混獲として海に返されず食用にされます 私達は観測の後にマンボウの9品コース料理を出されました 私たちが観測したものではありません 腎臓に睾丸 背骨 ヒレの筋肉まで マンボウ全体が食べられていると思います
So the hardest part of tagging, now, is after you put that tag on, you have to wait, months. And you're just wondering, oh, I hope the fish is safe, I hope, I hope it's going to be able to actually live its life out during the course that the tag is recording. The tags cost 3500 dollars each, and then satellite time is another 500 dollars, so you're like, oh, I hope the tag is okay. And so the waiting is really the hardest part. I'm going to show you our latest dataset. And it hasn't been published, so it's totally privy information just for TED. And in showing you this, you know, when we're looking at this data, we're thinking, oh do these animals, do they cross the equator? Do they go from one side of the Pacific to the other? And we found that they kind of are homebodies. They're not big migrators. This is their track: we deployed the tag off of Tokyo, and the Mola in one month kind of got into the Kuroshio Current off of Japan and foraged there. And after four months, went up, you know, off of the north part of Japan. And that's kind of their home range. Now that's important, though, because if there's a lot of fishing pressure, that population doesn't get replenished. So that's a very important piece of data.
この観測で一番辛いのは 札をつけた後 何か月も待たなくてはいけないことです マンボウが無事でありますように と祈るだけです 札が情報を記録している間 生き抜けるようにと願うわけです 札は一つ3500ドルで衛星タイムは500ドルなので 札が無事でありますように と思うわけです 待っている時間が一番大変です 最新のデータをお見せします これはTEDが初公開となる未公開のデータです 私達がこのデータを見て思うのは この生き物は赤道を越えるのかどうか? 彼らは太平洋の端から端まで行くのか? 彼らはどちらかと言うと引きこもりがちです それほど回遊しません ここで示したように 東京から後を追ってみたところ 一か月後 黒潮に乗って 沖合いで食糧探しを始め 4ヶ月後には 三陸はるか沖合に移動しました そこが行動圏です もし漁が盛んだったらマンボウの生息数は 増えないので これは重要なんです ですからこれは非常に重要なデータですが
But also what's important is that they're not slacker, lazy fish. They're super industrious. And this is a day in the life of a Mola, and if we -- they're up and down, and up and down, and up and down, and up and up and down, up to 40 times a day. As the sun comes up, you see in the blue, they start their dive. Down -- and as the sun gets brighter they go a little deeper, little deeper. They plumb the depths down to 600 meters, in temperatures to one degree centigrade, and this is why you see them on the surface -- it's so cold down there. They've got to come up, warm, get that solar power, and then plunge back into the depths, and go up and down and up and down. And they're hitting a layer down there; it's called the deep scattering layer -- which a whole variety of food's in that layer. So rather than just being some sunbathing slacker, they're really very industrious fish that dance this wild dance between the surface and the bottom and through temperature.
もう一つ重要なのは彼らは怠け者ではないということです とても働き者です これはマンボウの一日を示したものです 彼らは潜ったり上がったり 上下運動を一日に 最大40回も繰り返します 青線のように 日の出からダイブを始めます 陽ざしが強くなると 少しずつ潜って行き 600mの深さまで潜ります 水温は1℃で とても冷たいので海面で日光浴をするんです 上がってきて太陽熱を得なくちゃいけません そして再び上下運動を繰り返します 深海音波散乱層という食べ物がたくさんいる 層まで潜って行きます ただの日光浴をする怠け者ではなく 海面から 温度も違う海中深くまで 踊りを繰り返す実に働き者の魚です
We see the same pattern -- now with these tags we're seeing a similar pattern for swordfishes, manta rays, tunas, a real three-dimensional play. This is part of a much larger program called the Census of Marine Life, where they're going to be tagging all over the world and the Mola's going to enter into that. And what's exciting -- you all travel, and you know the best thing about traveling is to be able to find the locals, and to find the great places by getting the local knowledge. Well now with the Census of Marine Life, we'll be able to sidle up to all the locals and explore 90 percent of our living space, with local knowledge. It's never -- it's really never been a more exciting, or a vital time, to be a biologist.
この札を使って 同様のパターンが メカジキ マンタ マグロにも見られます 三次元のパフォーマンスです これは「海洋生物のセンサス」と呼ばれるもっと大きな計画の一部です 世界中で行われている調査では マンボウも対象に含まれます さて 旅で一番楽しい事は 地元の人に出会い 素敵な所を 教えてもらうことです 「海洋生物のセンサス」によって あらゆる場所の 情報を集め 生命圏の9割を探査できるのです 生物学者になって こんなに感動したことはありません
Which brings me to my last point, and what I think is kind of the most fun. I set up a website because I was getting so many questions about Molas and sunfish. And so I just figured I'd have the questions answered, and I'd be able to thank my funders, like National Geographic and Lindbergh. But people would write into the site with all sorts of, all sorts of stories about these animals and wanting to help me get samples for genetic analysis. And what I found most exciting is that everyone had a shared -- a shared love and an interest in the oceans. I was getting reports from Catholic nuns, Jewish Rabbis, Muslims, Christians -- everybody writing in, united by their love of life. And to me that -- I don't think I could say it any better than the immortal Bard himself: "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin." And sure, it may be just one big old silly fish, but it's helping. If it's helping to unite the world, I think it's definitely the fish of the future.
最後のポイントは 私が一番楽しんでいることです マンボウに関する質問がたくさん寄せられるのでホームページを作りました 質問に答えたり スポンサーに お礼が言えると思ったからです すると この生き物に関する様々な話や 遺伝子分析のサンプルを得る 手助けをしたいという書き込みがあるんです 一番嬉しいのは 誰もが海に対する 愛と興味を持っている事です カトリック尼僧 ユダヤ教のラビ イスラム教徒 キリスト教徒から報告をもらい 誰もが マンボウの命に対する愛で結びついています シェークスピアが上手いことを言っています “自然との繋がりが世界を親密にする” ただの大きな魚かも知れませんが 役に立っています 世界の繋がりを助ける 将来性のある魚だと思います