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In the lab, female rodents sometimes terminate their pregnancies after being exposed to new males. It’s called the Bruce effect, for researcher Hilda Bruce. Now a study in the journal Science finds that the Bruce effect occurs in the wild, and likely ups evolutionary fitness.
在实验室条件下，有时雌性啮齿类动物会在更换配偶后选择中止妊娠。这种现象首先被希尔达•布鲁斯所发现，因此被称为布鲁斯效应。如今，刊登在《科学》杂志上的一项研究显示，布鲁斯效应同样存在于野生动物界，而且这更像是为了满足进化适应性之所需。
To discover whether the Bruce effect is a naturally occurring adaptive strategy, researchers from the University of Michigan observed a wild population of gelada monkeys. They measured hormones in the animals’ feces to identify pregnant females and their conception dates.
为了调查布鲁斯效应是否是一种自然发生的适应策略，密歇根大学的研究人员对野生狒狒进行了观察。他们测量了狒狒粪便中的激素含量，以确定其是否怀孕以及其受孕日期。
Gelada monkeys live in small groups, with several females and a single male. When a rival displaces the male in a gelada family, he frequently kills his predecessor’s progeny. And the females know it. The researchers found that females impregnated by the old male terminate 80 percent of their pregnancies after the new male takes over.
一个狒狒家族往往很小，其中只有一个雄性狒狒和数个雌性狒狒。当竞争者取代了某一雄性狒狒在该家族中的地位时，它会频繁地杀死前任的后代。雌性狒狒知道这一点。研究人员发现，在被新的雄性狒狒掌握之后，80％的雌性狒狒会堕掉其和前任丈夫所怀有的胎儿。
Those females were quicker to conceive again with the new male than were females who hadn’t been pregnant. Rather than producing offspring at risk of death, females subject to the Bruce effect invest in new progeny—with a better chance of survival.
这些雌性狒狒与新丈夫再次受孕的速度要比没有怀孕过的的雌性狒狒的受孕速度更快。这些雌性狒狒产崽时不会遭受死亡威胁。相反，布鲁斯效应显示，它们可以将精力放在新的胎儿身上——这其实是一种更佳的生存之道。
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