来自今年尼康小世界动态竞赛的令人惊叹的显微视频

来自今年尼康小世界动态竞赛的令人惊叹的显微视频

From cannibalistic tardigrades to snoozing skeleton shrimp, the winners of the Nikon Small World In Motion Competition have been announced, offering a fascinating glimpse into the rarely seen world of the oh-so-very-small.

从同类相食的缓步动物到打盹的骷髅虾，尼康小世界动态摄影大赛的获胜者已经公布，这让我们得以一窥罕见的“哦，非常小”的世界。

Now in its ninth year, the Nikon Small World in Motion is the video component of the long-standing Nikon Small World still-photography competition, whose winners were announced back in October. The video arm of the competition was added in 2011 in response to new technology that opened up the field to recording movies or time-lapse photography through a microscopic lens.

尼康小世界动态摄影大赛(Nikon Small World in Motion)已经举办了九年，是尼康小世界静态摄影大赛(Nikon Small World still-photography competition)的视频部分。2011年，随着新技术的出现，通过显微镜头记录电影或延时摄影成为可能，比赛的视频部分应运而生。

The top prize was handed to Dr Philippe Laissue, a biologist and assistant professor at the University of Essex in the UK, for a stunning video of a polyp emerging from a reef-building staghorn coral.

最高奖项授予英国埃塞克斯大学生物学家和助理教授菲利普·拉索博士，他拍摄了一段令人惊叹的视频，展示了一个珊瑚虫从造礁的鹿角珊瑚中出现。

Most reef-building corals contain photosynthetic algae, called zooxanthellae, that live in their tissues as part of a mutualistic relationship; the coral provides the shelter and components needed for photosynthesis, while the algae provide the oxygen.

大多数造礁珊瑚都含有一种叫做zooxanthellae的光合藻类，这种藻类生活在它们的组织中，是互惠关系的一部分;珊瑚为光合作用提供庇护所和所需成分，而藻类提供氧气。

In Dr Laissue’s winning video, we get an intimate glimpse into this relationship, with the algae (colored in magenta) shown inside the coral. Not only is this an important process to document given the threat of climate change to coral reefs, but it’s also extremely difficult to capture because corals are extremely sensitive to light.

在Laissue博士获奖的视频中，我们可以近距离地看到这种关系，珊瑚内部的海藻(用洋红色表示)。考虑到气候变化对珊瑚礁的威胁，这不仅是一个重要的记录过程，而且因为珊瑚对光非常敏感，所以很难捕捉到。

I am fascinated by their otherworldliness and beauty, and have been working on imaging them for several years now,” Dr Laissue told IFLscience. With gentle fluorescence microscopy, we can collect important information about what is happening on the cellular level when corals react to different environmental conditions. This helps us to better understand corals and their development, thus contributing to finding the best strategies to protect and conserve them.”

Laissue博士告诉IFLscience:“我被它们的超凡脱俗和美丽所吸引，几年来我一直在研究如何给它们成像。”“利用温和的荧光显微镜，我们可以收集到重要的信息，这些信息是关于珊瑚对不同环境条件的反应时，在细胞水平上发生了什么。”这有助我们更好地了解珊瑚及其发展，从而找出最佳的保育策略。”

“In the beginning, I used conventional fluorescence microscopy techniques, which damaged my coral samples, or didn't produce very useful images. So I got a small Royal Society grant to make a bespoke light-sheet microscope, which uses very little light and keeps the coral happy.”

“一开始，我使用传统的荧光显微镜技术，这损害了我的珊瑚样本，或者没有产生非常有用的图像。所以我得到了一小笔皇家学会的资助，用来制作一种定制的薄胶片显微镜，这种显微镜只需要很少的光线，却能让珊瑚快乐。”