SEA CUCUMBERS, soft-bodied relatives of sea urchins and starfish, are a sought-after foodstuff. In China alone the market for their flesh is worth $3bn a year. Unfortunately for those who try to make a living catching them, their populations often seem to undergo a cycle of boom and bust. Annie Mercier of the Memorial University of Newfoundland, in Canada, was curious to know why this is. In particular, she wondered whether over-harvesting was to blame, or if the animals were simply migrating away. As she reports in the Journal of Animal Ecology, they not only migrate, they do so by adopting a second vegetablelike guise-that of tumbleweeds.
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机译：海瓜是海胆和海星的近亲，是一种受欢迎的食品。仅在中国，肉类市场每年就价值30亿美元。不幸的是，对于那些以谋生为生的人来说，他们的人口似乎经常经历着繁荣与萧条的循环。加拿大纽芬兰纪念大学的安妮·梅西耶（Annie Mercier）很好奇这是为什么。特别是，她想知道是否应该归咎于过度采伐，或者仅仅是动物迁徙而已。正如她在《动物生态学杂志》（Journal of Animal Ecology）中报道的那样，它们不仅迁移，而且通过采用第二种类似蔬菜的幌子-风滚草来迁移。
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