浮木驚人的美麗和好處

浮木驚人的美麗和好處

Trees are pillars of their communities, a role they can maintain even in death. An upright dead tree offers vital habitat to certain birds and bats, for example, while a fallen tree is a bonanza for life on the forest floor, including future trees.

樹木是我們社會的支柱，即使死亡也能維持這個角色。例如，一棵直立的死樹為某些鳥類和蝙蝠提供了重要的棲息地，而一棵倒下的樹則為森林地面上的生命(包括未來的樹木)提供了豐富的資源。

Yet rotting in place is not the only natural afterlife for a tree. Sometimes, instead of giving back to its birth forest, a tree will embark on an odyssey to pay it forward, carrying its ecological wealth away from the only home it has ever known.

然而，就地腐爛并不是樹木唯一的自然來世。有時候，一棵樹非但沒有回歸到它的生長期，反而會帶著它的生態(tài)財富踏上征程，離開它唯一的家園，繼續(xù)繁衍。

Sunrise reveals an eponymous piece of debris at Driftwood Beach on Georgia's Jekyll Island. (Photo: Jon Bilous/Shutterstock)

These traveling trees don't mean to betray their roots; they're just going with the flow. They've become driftwood, a term for any woody remnants of trees that wind up moving through rivers, lakes or oceans. This journey is often brief, merely leading to a different part of the same ecosystem, but it can also send a tree far out to sea — and maybe even across it.

這些“旅行”的樹并不想背叛它們的根;他們只是隨大流。它們已經變成了浮木，指的是那些在河流、湖泊或海洋中漂浮的樹木的殘骸。這段旅程通常很短暫，只是通往同一個生態(tài)系統(tǒng)的不同部分，但它也可以把一棵樹送到很遠的地方——甚至可能穿過海洋。

Driftwood is a common sight at beaches around the world, although many people dismiss it as unremarkable scenery or useless debris. And while some driftwood is a little short on mystique — like twigs from a nearby tree, or boards that fell off a fishing pier — it can also be a ghost from a distant forest or shipwreck, transformed by its adventures into something beautiful. Along the way, driftwood tends to return the favor by reshaping and enriching the environments it visits.

浮木是世界各地海灘上常見的景觀，盡管許多人認為它只是普通的風景或無用的殘骸。雖然有些浮木缺乏神秘感——比如從附近的樹上取下的細枝，或者從釣魚碼頭上掉下來的木板——但它也可能是來自遙遠森林的鬼魂或者沉船，經過歷險后變成了一些美麗的東西。在這個過程中，浮木往往會通過改變和豐富它所處的環(huán)境來回報這種恩惠。

Windows of opportunity

機會之窗

Lake Huron peers through a driftwood window at Pinery Provincial Park near Grand Bend, Ontario. (Photo: Brian Lasenby/Shutterstock)

Long before humans built boats from dead trees, the raw materials were out there exploring uncharted waters on their own. Driftwood may have even inspired our first wooden rafts and boats, as ancient people noticed its strength and buoyancy.

早在人類用死樹造船之前，這些原材料就已經在那里自己探索未知的水域。古代的人們注意到了浮木的力量和浮力，也許正是浮木激發(fā)了我們建造木筏和小船的靈感。

Dead trees have always served as boats, though, just usually for smaller passengers. Driftwood not only feeds and shelters lots of tiny wildlife, but can also help them colonize otherwise unreachable habitats. And its arrival can benefit local residents, too, introducing new resources to sustain coastal wildlife and help buffer their exposed home from wind and sun.

不過，枯樹一直被用作船只，通常只是供較小的乘客使用。浮木不僅可以喂養(yǎng)和庇護許多微小的野生動物，還可以幫助它們開拓原本無法到達的棲息地。而且它的到來也能使當地居民受益，為維持沿海野生動物帶來新的資源，并幫助他們的家免受風和太陽的傷害。

Logging off

浮木

Driftwood can enrich rivers and shape their channels over time, as this natural logjam is doing for Panther Creek at Gifford Pinchot National Forest in Washington. (Photo: Thye-Wee Gn/Shutterstock)

The adventures of driftwood often begin in rivers, and many of them stay there. Driftwood is an important part of virtually all natural waterscapes around the world, including freshwater streams, rivers and lakes as well as oceans.

漂流木的冒險故事通常從河流開始，很多漂流木都呆在那里。浮木是世界上幾乎所有天然水景的重要組成部分，包括淡水溪流、河流、湖泊和海洋。

Rivers that flow through or near forests tend to collect pieces of dead trees, sometimes resulting in accumulations of driftwood known as logjams. Over time, these clusters can help build up the banks of rivers and even shape their channels, influencing not only the way water moves through the ecosystem, but also what kind of solutes, sediments and organic matter it contains.

流經森林或森林附近的河流往往會收集死樹的碎片，有時會導致被稱為“木塞”的浮木的堆積。隨著時間的推移，這些集群可以幫助建立河岸，甚至塑造河道，不僅影響水在生態(tài)系統(tǒng)中的移動方式，還影響其中所包含的溶質、沉積物和有機物的種類。

Traveling habitat

旅行的棲息地

Driftwood can serve as a 'floating reef' for various wildlife after it departs dry land. (Photo: Bryce Jackson/Shutterstock)

For driftwood that leaves terra firma to begin a new life at sea, the odds of ever returning to land are pretty slim. But being lost at sea doesn't necessarily mean their travels are a lost cause. As writer Brian Payton noted recently in Hakai Magazine, driftwood can stay afloat in the open ocean for about 17 months, where it offers rare amenities like food, shade, protection from waves and a place to lay eggs. As such, pelagic driftwood becomes a "floating reef" that can host a variety of marine wildlife.

對于離開陸地在海上開始新生活的浮木來說，返回陸地的機會非常渺茫。但在海上迷路并不一定意味著他們的旅行失敗了。作家布萊恩佩頓最近在《海凱雜志》上撰文指出，浮木可以在公海上漂浮約17個月，在那里它可以提供罕見的便利，比如食物、陰涼、防浪和產卵的地方。因此，遠洋浮木成為一個“浮礁”，可以容納各種海洋野生動物。