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The most common types of ingested birth control contain estrogen. But the hormone doesn’t just prevent human babies. It may be lowering numbers of frog babies, too. Because estrogens can travel unaltered through a woman’s system, and back into the environment—where they interfere with the courtship of frogs.
使用雌性激素是人类最常用的节育方式。然而，雌性激素不仅可以降低人类婴儿的出生率，还会使蛙类的繁殖大受影响。雌性激素可通过女性身体完好无损地排放到环境中——这就对蛙类的求偶产生影响。
Researchers bathed male frogs in tanks containing various concentrations of estrogen—comparable to levels previously measured in nature. And they found that males exposed to estrogen made significantly fewer ‘advertisement’ calls: mating calls that say “hey ladies, I’m over here.” Instead, the frogs made more so-called ‘rasping’ calls: a sign the boys weren’t as turned on as they used to be.
研究人员将青蛙浸泡在含有不同浓度（相对于以往在自然界中测得的青蛙雌性激素水平而言）雌性激素的容器中。他们发现，浸泡在雌性激素中的雄蛙的原本重要的求爱声“嘿，女士们，我在这里”大大减少。相反，雄蛙会更多地发出一种“沙哑”的叫声——这种叫声意味着他们已不像以往那样孔武有力。
As it turns out, neither were the ladies. Because when researchers played back estrogen-influenced calls to females, the lady frogs weren’t as hot to hop, compared to when they heard the crooning of control frogs. Those findings appear in the journal Public Library of Science ONE.
事实证明，雌蛙会因此而受到影响。与听到雄蛙响亮叫声的反应不同的是，当研究人员向雌蛙播放受雌性激素影响的雄性青蛙的叫声时，雌蛙并不兴奋。这项研究结果刊登在《科学公共图书馆》杂志上。
The authors say less seductive mating calls could mean fewer tadpoles. Which means our sex lives could be partly to blame for making global populations of amphibians croak.
研究人员认为，雄蛙求爱声魅力减弱与雌蛙产卵量减少是有联系的。因此，全球青蛙数量的减少，部分程度上应归咎于人类的的两性生活。
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