Four Laws of Ecology
1 In broad outline,there are environmental cycles which govern the behavior of the three great global systems:the air,the water,and the soil.Within each of them live many thousands of  different species of living things.Each species is suited to its particular environmental niche,and each,through its life processes,affects the physical and chemical properties of its immediate environment.
1概括来讲,地球的三大系统—空气、水和土壤的行为由环境循环所决定。每个系统中都生活着成千上万个不同物种的生物,每个物种都有与之相适宜的独特的环境生位,并且每一物种,在其整个生命历程中,都影响着它的周边环境的物理和化学特性。
2 Each living species is also linked to many others.These links are bewildering in their variety and marvelous in their intricate detail.An animal,such as a deer,may depend on plants for food;the plants depend on the action of soil bacteria for their nutrients;the bacteria in turn live on the organic wastes dropped by the animal on the soil.At the same ti
me.the deer is food for the mountain lion. Insects may live on the juices of plants or gather pollen from their flowers.Other insects suck blood from animals.Bacteria may live on the internal tissues of animals and plants.Fungi degrade the bodies of dead plants and animals.All this,many times multiplied and organized species by species in intricate,precise relationships,makes up the vast network of life on the earth.
2每个生物物种也与许多其他的物种相联系。1.这些联系的多样性令人迷惑不解,其错综复杂的细节令人惊叹不已。某一动物,如一只鹿,可能依靠植物来获取食物;植物依靠土壤细菌的活动来获取其营养;相应地,细菌以陆地上的动物排泄出来的有机废物为生。同时,鹿是美洲狮的食物。昆虫可能以植物的汁液为生,或者从其花朵里采集花粉。其他的昆虫则吸吮动物的血液。细菌可能以动物和植物的内部组织为生。真菌分解死亡的植物和动物的躯体。所有这一切,由各个物种通过复杂而严密的关系多次繁殖和组织,构成了地球上巨大的生命之网。
 
3 The science that studies these relationships and the processes linking each living thing to the physical and chemical environment is ecology.It is the science of planetary housekeeping For the environment is,so to speak,the house created on the earth by living things for living things.It is a young science and much of what it teaches has been learned from only small segments of the whole network of life on the earth Ecology has not yet explicitly develop the kind of cohesive,
simplifying generalizations exemplified by,say,the laws of physics.Nevertheless there are a number generalizations that are already evident in what we now know about the ecosphere and that can be organized into a kind of informal set of laws of ecology.These are described in what follows
3研究这些关系以及把每种生物与物理和化学环境相联系的过程的科学是生态学。它是行星家政科学。2.因为环境,可以说,是地球上由生物创造并为生物所用的家园。这是一门年轻的科学,而且它所讲述的大部分内容都是从地球整个生命之网的仅仅一小部分上所得来的。生态学还没有明确形成,比如说,像物理学定律那样联系紧密的、简化的一般法则。不过,在我
们现在对生态圈的认识方面,有许多一般法则已经显而易见,它们可以组成一套通俗的“生态学法则”。这些法则表述如下。
The First Law of Ecology:Everything Is Connected to Everything Else
生态学的第一条法则每一个事物都与其他事物相关
4 Some of the evidence that leads to this generalization has already been discussed.It reflects the existence of the elaborate network of interconnections in the ecosphere:among different living organisms,and between populations,species,and individual organisms and their physicochemical surroundings
4得出这条一般法则的一些证据已经讨论过了。它反映了生态圈中存在着相互联系的复杂网络:这个网络存在于不同的生物体中,存在于种、物种和个体生物与其物理化学环境之间
5 The single fact that an ecosystem consists of multipleinter connected parts,which act on one another,has some surprising consequences.Our ability to picture the behavior of such
systems has been helped considerably by the development,even more recent than ecology,of the science of cybernetics.We owe the basic concept,and the word itself,to the inventive mind of the late
Norbert wiener.
5一个生态系统由很多相互联系的部分组成,它们相互作用,仅仅这个事实就产生了一些令人惊奇的结果。控制论这一学科的发展极大地提高了我们描述这类系统行为的能力,而它的发展甚至比生态学还晚3我们把这一基本概念以及这个回本身的产生都归功于已故的诸伯特·威纳的有创造力的头脑
6 The word cybernetics derives from the Greek word for helmsman";it is concerned with cycles of events that steer,or govern,the behavior of a system.The helmsman is part of a system that also includes the compass,the rudder,and the ship.If the ship veers off the chosen compass course,the change shows up in the movement of the compass needle Observed and interpreted by the helmsman this event determines a subsequent one:the
helmsman turns the rudder,which swings the ship back to its original course. When this happens,the compass needle returns to its original,on course position and the cycle is complete.If the helmsman turns the rudder too far in response to a small deflection of the compass needle,the excess swing of the ship shows up in the compass which signals the helmsman to correct his overreaction by an opposite movement.
Thus the operation of this cycle stabilizes the course of the ship.
6控制论一词源于希腊语中的“舵手”一词:它与操纵或控制某一系统行为的事件发生的周期有关。舵手是某一系统的一部分,这个系统还包括罗盘、船舵和船。若船偏离了罗盘所指示的航向,这一变化会在罗盘指针的移动上显示出来。当舵手观察并了解到这个事件后,便决定了一个随之而来的事件:舵手转动船舵,船舵使船拐回其原来的航向。发生这一情况之后,罗盘指针就会转回到其原来的航向位置上,这个周期随即完成。如果罗盘指针只是稍有偏离,而舵手又因此把舵转得过猛,船的过分偏航会在罗盘上显示出来—这就提醒舵手把舵往回打以纠正他的过度行为。这样,这个周期的运作就使船的航向稳定了下来。
degrade7 In quite a similar way,stabilizing cybernetic relations are built into an ecological cycle.
Consider,for example,the fresh water ecological cycle:fish-organic waste-bacteria of decay inorganic products-algae-fish.Suppose that due to unusually warm summer weather there is a rapid growth of algae.This depletes the supply of inorganic nutrients so that two sectors of the cycle,algae and nutrients,are out of balance,but in opposite directions.The operation of the ecological cycle,like that of the ship,soon brings the situation back into balance.For the excess in algae increases the ease with which fish can feed on them;this reduces the algal population,

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