一篇90分毕业论文是怎么写成的？黑龙江姑娘揭秘宁波家燕的“快乐老家”

Please scroll down for the English version-UNNC graduate’s regional research on barn swallows wins high praise.

春末夏初的夜晚，黑龙江姑娘张岿然像往常一样背上书包，挎起相机，挂着副八倍镜，便出门上街看燕子。

这位宁波诺丁汉大学环境科学系2020届的毕业生，去年顶着寒暑寻访甬城内的燕巢，以家燕为研究对象，毕业论文拿下90分的高分。（按照宁诺的评分体系——70分以上即优秀。）指导老师Odette Paramor直言：“这是毕业季看到的最真挚可爱的论文！”

刚刚结束在密歇根大学第一学年硕士课程的她，希望利用暑假将这篇论文整理发表。同时，她计划与北京大学的候鸟研究团队沟通协作，将毕业论文中的研究区域扩大，继续以亲历生态现场的方式揭秘家燕的“快乐老家”。

一次外出看病带来的灵感

张岿然和鸟的缘分始于大二。图书馆举办的一场鸟类展览，张岿然报名成为了志愿者，就此和这些小生命结缘，掉进了观鸟的“坑”。后来她还担任学生社团Nottingreen的社长。

大三下，她就决定选择鸟类作为自己的毕业论文研究对象，希望研究栖息地以及人类活动对城市鸟类多样性及丰富度的影响。但辛苦耕耘一学期后，她遇到了瓶颈：观测位点众多，需要频繁造访，还有“因为被迫观鸟而对鸟产生的厌恶心情”，都让她十分泄气。在持续的焦虑下，张岿然生了一场病，而正是这次看病的外出，带给了她全新的灵感。

从医院出来，她漫步在鼓楼街头，意外发现老巷子里成群结队地居住着许多燕子。已是夜晚时分，街巷仍被熙熙攘攘的人群和生意红火的小饭店映照得如同白昼，按照自然规律本该休息的家燕仍在捉虫哺雏。

喧闹的鼓楼步行街里也有燕子集体筑窝

观察着这一切，她忍不住想：为什么燕子们会在这里集群筑窝，而不是其他位置？它们挑选巢址会考虑哪些因素？那么，在城市或乡村中生活的家燕会有不同的考量吗？

回学校后，这些疑问一直萦绕在她的心头。她查阅了大量文献，发现这样的研究正是现存科研的空白。并且燕巢位置固定，方便调查。于是在得到导师的支持后，她兴高采烈地敲定了新的研究方向。

她计划在城市与乡村的辐射带上，研究影响家燕选择巢址的环境因素。调查区域被锁定在鼓楼与宁诺两点间的延长线上，她解释说：“鄞州区近年来一直在搞建设，这条调查样带既包含了丰富的城市肌理，又能体现城市向外扩张的动态变化。”

张岿然的田园调查研究区域图

她把自己代入了燕子家长的角色

“4时39分家燕夫妇醒来，先在建筑物廊道里飞了几圈，似乎在热身，然后飞到外面，也许是去进食了一些飞虫。4时44分成鸟开始喂食雏鸟，平均3分钟/次，一小时内共喂食21次……”

——摘自张岿然的观测记录

根据生态学理论，想理解动物的生活，就要用“动物的眼睛”去看世界。于是张岿然选择鼓楼与宁诺校内的两户燕子作为“模范家庭”，设身处地地观察它们的日常生活，将自己代入燕子家长的角色，理解它们选址的考量。

同时，为了尽可能全面地采集到调查区域内的燕巢，她每天辗转于鼓楼与宁诺两点间的采样带上。调查区域内的每一条街道、每一个村庄，每一户燕子的位置她都烂熟于心。

在鼓楼的街道里，经常能找到“燕子家庭”

经过三个月的田野调查，她一共收集到169个燕巢的数据。并且，基于经验判断，她还记录下101个本该是绝佳筑巢点，却“诡异”地没有燕子家庭光顾的点位。

“

这篇论文的核心问题是家燕们是如何选择它们的栖息地的，我希望能站在动物的视角完整且有逻辑地分析一个家燕宅区的‘风水’，进而预测出有利于家燕筑巢的环境因素。

通过对变量进行合理筛选、随机组合，她最终得到了27个模型，并通过比较得出结论：越老的小区或者村庄越容易发现燕子窝；在家燕约500m的觅食范围内如果存在吸引飞虫聚集的要素，燕窝往往会更密集；景观尺度的环境变量如河流、道路长度、绿地面积，在大尺度范围内（750m）对家燕巢密度影响更大，密集的水网会吸引更多家燕，而密集的道路则会导致家燕巢密度下降。

“这是一篇真正具有独创性的研究”

交完论文之后，张岿然多少有点忐忑。毕竟她的论文属于完全原创性的学术研究，没有太多先例可循。

这篇论文最终获得了中英双方考官的一致好评。她的导师Odette Paramor博士说，

“

这显然是她热爱并且喜欢做的一件事情。不论是研究的广度和深度、严谨性，还是她投入的原创的思想、细心和纯粹的努力，这些都让这篇文章闪耀。

不止是Odette Paramor，所有外部考官都被她在论文中展现的“真挚”所打动。一位考官在阅读了当年度诺丁汉大学地理科学系所有本科毕业论文后，认为这篇文章“极其优秀”——田野调查和研究方法令人印象深刻，并表示这是他最喜欢的一篇论文。

本只想全力以赴做好毕业论文的张岿然没想到收获了如此之多的好评。目前在美国密歇根大学的环境生态学系读研的她保持着和本科导师的联络，筹备近期将这篇文章投稿发表至学术期刊。

与此同时，她打算这个暑期与北大的候鸟团队沟通协作，继续探索家燕繁殖相关的课题。这一次，她计划运用公民科学的力量，招募“寻燕志愿者”扩大研究范围，对论文结果进行进一步的分析和论证。

为了拍摄，经常全副武装的张岿然

回顾这段崎岖而充满挑战的经历，张岿然觉得，最大的意义就是锻炼了自己坚毅的心性。由于经验不足她踩了很多坑，但是她始终没有放弃，而是“死磕到底”。这也使她切身体会到科研的完整过程，也被科研的魅力深深俘获。

“

做着自己喜欢的事情，再累都是幸福的。每次找到一个窝，看到可爱的小燕子的时候，我就觉得：值了。

UNNC graduate’s regional research on barn swallows wins high praise

Kuiran Zhang, a 2020 Environmental Sciences graduate from University of Nottingham Ningbo China (UNNC), took one year to find and observe almost every barn swallow nest within her study area, a 18km * 5km rectangle across the Yinzhou district of Ningbo for her thesis research, and obtained the highest dissertation score in the School of Geographical Sciences of the year.

Now moving on to pursuing an MSc at the University of Michigan, Kuiran plans to work with the Bird Migratory Research Team at Peking University to expand her research scope during her break.

Kuiran’s interest in birds developed from her volunteer experience for the “Birds in UNNC” exhibition on campus in 2018, which aimed to raise students’ awareness on bird and environmental protection. She chose birds as the theme of her graduation thesis in year three, hoping to study the impact of habitat and human activities on the diversity and population of urban birds.

Kuiran made little progress in her dissertation at the beginning, because the very first topic she chose involves huge amount of observation sites, high observe frequency. Anxiety caused by approaching deadlines frustrated her and made her ill. However, it was a trip to hospital that gave her new inspiration - the unusual behavior of barn swallows in the downtown area made her rethink the factors that influence nest site.

After conducting background research, Kuiran found a research gap and changed her research direction.Her new research focuses on barn swallow nest distribution patterns along a suburban-to-urban core landscape gradient. “I chose Yinzhou district because it has developed rapidly since its establishment, starting within Ningbo’s urban core and extending out into agricultural areas,” she explained.

To fully understand barn swallows’ decision and obtain first-hand data, Kuiran visited every street and tried to find every nest in her study area. She also picked two nests to carefully observe the inhabitants’ lives, trying to interpret factors influencing swallow parents’ choices from their perspective.

Despite the inconvenient transportation and dialect barriers, she successfully collected the data of 169 nests. After thorough data analysis, she discovered that barn swallows favour older building blocks, and insect traps within radii of 500m will attract denser nests. Landscape variables “length of road” and “length of river” predict colony size more accurately in large scales than in smaller scales, and Length of road within radii of 750m explains the most variance in colony size.

As her research was completely original without many precedent cases to refer to, Kuiran was a little nervous at first. However, she was happily surprised by the high praise from the entire supervisor board.

“The loveliest thing about Kuiran’s dissertation was that it was obviously a piece of work which she had loved and enjoyed doing. The breadth of the research, the range of methodological approaches used, and the level of original thought, really made her dissertation shine. It was a total joy to read,” said Dr Odette Paramor, her supervisor.

An external examiner called it “truly excellent” after reading all the first-class dissertations from School of Geography across the three campuses, and said that it had been his favourite dissertation of the year.

Currently studying in the US, Kuiran still keeps close contact with Dr Paramor, and is preparing to send this dissertation to academic journals.

Looking back on the whole research process, Kuiran was glad that she persevered to the end, overcoming various obstacles that arose and accumulating experience step by step. “Doing things I love makes every effort meaningful,” she recalled.

文字来源 | 毛思逸，Lily Su

图片来源 | 张岿然

English | Elena Yang，ETT

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