Environment & Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter, Penryn, Cornwall, TR10 9FE, UK.
Curr Biol. 2022 Oct 24;32(20):R1163-R1166. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.07.053.
What do birds do for us? Some may find this an inappropriate or perhaps distasteful question, suggesting as it might that the importance or value of birds lies principally in the ways that they benefit people, and with perhaps an unspoken implication that if they do not do enough then we should not be too concerned as to what befalls them. Nonetheless, it seems vital to understand the benefits or enhancements to human wellbeing, commonly known as ecosystem services, that birds provide for two main reasons. First, birds are under high and increasing threat, and thus these ecosystem services are also under pressure; around 4% of the known bird species of the Late Pleistocene is estimated to have become extinct, a much higher percentage of local populations has been lost or seriously eroded, and around 13% of current extant bird species is considered globally threatened with extinction. Second, and arguably more importantly, our ability to answer the question of what birds do for us is in some sense a measure of how well we understand, and place adequate 'value' (in the broadest, and not simply an economic, sense) on, the interaction between people and birds, and more generally that between people and nature. Indeed, birds provide a particularly valuable test of such understanding because they have been subject to a long and rich history of human interest and study.
鸟类为我们做了什么？有些人可能认为这是一个不恰当或令人反感的问题，因为它可能暗示鸟类的重要性或价值主要在于它们使人类受益的方式，而且也许还隐含着一种不言而喻的意味，如果它们没有做足够的事情，那么我们就不必过于担心它们的遭遇。然而，出于两个主要原因，理解鸟类为人类福祉（通常称为生态系统服务）提供的益处或增强似乎至关重要。首先，鸟类受到高度和不断增加的威胁，因此这些生态系统服务也面临压力；据估计，晚更新世已知鸟类物种中有 4%已经灭绝，更多的当地鸟类种群已经消失或严重减少，目前约有 13%的现存鸟类物种被认为在全球范围内受到灭绝的威胁。其次，也许更重要的是，我们能够回答鸟类为我们做了什么这个问题，在某种程度上衡量了我们对人类与鸟类之间的相互作用，以及更广泛地说，人类与自然之间的相互作用的理解程度，并对其给予适当的“价值”（广义而言，而不仅仅是经济意义上的）。事实上，鸟类为这种理解提供了一个特别有价值的测试，因为它们一直是人类长期而丰富的兴趣和研究的主题。
