土拨鼠佛系养生法：论减少社交的好处 | Proc. Royal Soc. B 论文

一个人生活是很孤单的，但对于有些哺乳动物来说，独自生活的境遇却远比群居好得多。比如下图中这只学名为黄腹旱獭（Yellow-bellied Marmot，Marmota flaviventris）的土拨鼠。

图片来源：WikimediaCommons （可点击图片查看更多物种介绍）

作者 Brigit Katz

来源 smithsonianmag

翻译 严冰冰

审校 紫紫苏  

来自美国科罗拉多州的研究团队用了 13 年的时间跟踪这些小可爱的社交活动和寿命长短，发现那些懒得社交的土拨鼠往往活得更久，成果于近期发表于 Proceedings of the RoyalSociety B 杂志上。

黄腹旱獭随遇而安，适应性极强，虽然倾向于独居生活，但当群体增大、生存空间被压缩时，它们也能友好地和小伙伴们相处。加利佛尼亚大学的生物学家 Daniel T. Blumstein 对这种动态的社交关系十分着迷，他带领团队追踪科罗拉多州的 11 个土拨鼠群体长达 13 年之久。由于成年雄性土拨鼠不和群体一起生活，该研究的关注点集中在雌性土拨鼠之间错综复杂的社交关系上。这 11 个土拨鼠群体大小不同，从单个到多个雌性个体不等。

科学家们通过远距离双筒望远镜偷窥，观察这些小可爱们的活动：挨个坐着、一起玩耍、相互梳毛和寻找食物等。研究人员意外地发现，那些社交活跃的土拨鼠们比内向孤僻的土拨鼠平均少活 2 年。考虑到土拨鼠的平均寿命只有 15 年，少活 2 年就是件大事了。

这一发现让人们自觉地与土拨鼠划清界线，因为我们社交活动越强，活得越久。许多其他哺乳动物也是如此，比如狒狒和雌性恒河猴。另有一项关于人类的研究表明，缺乏社交活动会使夭折风险上升 50% 之多。所以下次被拉去参加某远房亲戚太太的宝宝派对的时候，切莫动气，切莫动气。 

至此，研究者们并不十分确定土拨鼠的反社会行为为何会导致寿命增长。 Blumstein 有一些正经而可爱的猜测，比如，（i）社交行为可能利于疾病传播，（ii）熊孩子容易在冬眠期把小伙伴吵醒，导致大家挨饿，又或者（iii）一起玩耍得太开心，忘记了防范捕食者。他表示，只是想一想的话，合情合理的假设太多了，暂时还不能确定。（我们都很好奇，星星眼。）

原文链接：https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/marmots-live-longer-when-they-are-antisocial-180967888/

相关论文信息

【标题】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

【链接】http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/285/1871/20171934

【编号】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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