土撥鼠佛系養生法：論減少社交的好處

一個人生活是很孤單的，但對於有些哺乳動物來說，獨自生活的境遇卻遠比群居好得多。比如下圖中這隻學名為黃腹旱獺（Yellow-bellied Marmot，Marmota flaviventris）的土撥鼠。

作者 Brigit Katz

來源 smithsonianmag

翻譯 嚴冰冰

審校 紫紫蘇

來自美國科羅拉多州的研究團隊用了 13 年的時間跟蹤這些小可愛的社交活動和壽命長短，發現那些懶得社交的土撥鼠往往活得更久，成果於近期發表於 Proceedings of the RoyalSociety B 雜誌上。

黃腹旱獺隨遇而安，適應性極強，雖然傾向於獨居生活，但當群體增大、生存空間被壓縮時，它們也能友好地和小夥伴們相處。加利佛尼亞大學的生物學家 Daniel T. Blumstein 對這種動態的社交關係十分著迷，他帶領團隊追蹤科羅拉多州的 11 個土撥鼠群體長達 13 年之久。由於成年雄性土撥鼠不和群體一起生活，該研究的關注點集中在雌性土撥鼠之間錯綜複雜的社交關係上。這 11 個土撥鼠群體大小不同，從單個到多個雌性個體不等。

科學家們通過遠距離雙筒望遠鏡偷窺，觀察這些小可愛們的活動：挨個坐著、一起玩耍、相互梳毛和尋找食物等。研究人員意外地發現，那些社交活躍的土撥鼠們比內向孤僻的土撥鼠平均少活 2 年。考慮到土撥鼠的平均壽命只有 15 年，少活 2 年就是件大事了。

至此，研究者們並不十分確定土撥鼠的反社會行為為何會導致壽命增長。Blumstein 有一些正經而可愛的猜測，比如，（i）社交行為可能利於疾病傳播，（ii）熊孩子容易在冬眠期把小夥伴吵醒，導致大家挨餓，又或者（iii）一起玩耍得太開心，忘記了防範捕食者。他表示，只是想一想的話，合情合理的假設太多了，暫時還不能確定。（我們都很好奇，星星眼。）

相關論文信息

【標題】Strong social relationships areassociated with decreased longevity in a facultatively social mammal

【作者】. Daniel T. Blumstein, Dana M.Williams, Alexandra N. Lim, Svenja Kroeger, Julien G. A. Martin

【日期】17 January 2018

【期刊】Proceedings of the Royal Society B

【編號】DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1934

【摘要】

Humans in strong social relationships aremore likely to live longer because social relationships may buffer stressorsand thus have protective effects. However, a shortcoming of human studies isthat they often rely on self-reporting of these relationships. By contrast,observational studies of non-human animals permit detailed analyses of thespecific nature of social relationships. Thus, discoveries that some socialanimals live longer and healthier lives if they are involved in socialgrooming, forage together or have more affiliative associates emphasizes thepotential importance of social relationships on health and longevity. Previousstudies have focused on the impact of social metrics on longevity in obligatelysocial species. However, if sociality indeed has a key role in longevity, wemight expect that affiliative relationships should also influence longevity inless social species. We focused on socially flexible yellow-bellied marmots(Marmota flaviventer) and asked whether female longevity covaries with thespecific nature of social relationships. We quantified social relationshipswith social network statistics that were based on affiliative interactions, andthen estimated the correlation between longevity and sociality using bivariatemodels. We found a significant negative phenotypic correlation betweenaffiliative social relationship strength and longevity; marmots with greaterdegree, closeness and those with a greater negative average shortest pathlength died at younger ages. We conclude that sociality plays an important rolein longevity, but how it does so may depend on whether a species is obligatelyor facultatively social.

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