Beavers(海狸), like humans, change their surroundings to fit their needs. Known as nature’s engineers, they tear trees down to build homes to live in and dams to raise water levels for protection from endemics. Dams also slow water’s flow while blocking sediment(沉积物)that would otherwise flow downstream. The resulting wetlands often attract wildlife diversity where none had existed. There are challenges, though. Beaver dams sometimes cause flooding, and most people prefer trees alive and upright.
Communities face a delicate balancing act, learning to coexist with beavers. Last winter, many people enjoying Winston Path became beaver fans as one furry family transformed Swallow Pond into an oasis for birds, frogs, turtles and deer.
Yet such activity caused concern. As beavers worked, they raised water levels about five feet. The increased depth allows beavers to survive underwater if the pond ices over. But county officials were concerned about how higher water would affect the soil bank supporting Winston Path.
To find a good balance between protecting the path and the beavers, the county introduced a “beaver baffle”- a pond leveler. Beavers often rush to fill holes in their dams. Baffles stabilize water levels by creating a hidden exit for high water to escape through the dam, unnoticed by the beavers.
People love the beavers but they also love the mature trees. Recently, Catherine Jones,18, organized a tree-caging event-putting wire cloth around large tree trunks to discourage beavers from biting them. It also protects people from injury due to random trees falling. “We cover the trees we don’t want them to eat, while planting periodically others they like,” said Jones. “We need to learn to give up a little of our wants to share the Earth’s resources.”
Swallow Pond’s 2023 project will restore proper water depth and improve wildlife habitat without creating problems for the path. The balancing act continues.
1. What is the first paragraph mainly about?| A．Where beavers’ favorite surroundings are. |
| B．What effects beavers have on their habitat. |
| C．Why beavers are called nature’s engineers. |
| D．How beavers help attract wildlife diversity. |
| A．Swallow Pond would flood often. |
| B．Sediment would flow downstream. |
| C．The popular path might be damaged. |
| D．Beavers might have to live underwater. |
| A．They build beaver dams. | B．They fill holes in the dams. |
| C．They cover all the trees. | D．They plant trees beavers like. |
| A．Biological diversity. | B．Harmonious coexistence. |
| C．Prevention of natural disasters. | D．Preservation of wildlife habitat. |
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【推荐1】Bees aren’t the only insects pollinating (给……授粉) red clover. Moths (飞蛾) do about a third of the flower visits after dark, new research suggests. The discovery stresses what researchers may be missing in researching into the night shift of plant pollination, including a previously unknown benefit of the moth pollination to the clover—a boost in seed production.
This work may help deepen scientists’ understanding of the pollination services provided by nighttime moths. For about a century, the general understanding of clover pollination has been that bees —and bees alone—are the key insect players. “Clover is a valuable agricultural plant and has received a lot of studies,” says Jamie Alison, a pollinator ecologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. “Yet, none of those studies have said anything about the possibility of moth pollination.”
Álison and his colleagues discovered moths’ pollination role while studying how plants and their insect pollinators would respond to climate change by moving uphill. To record the exact pollinators that would go to grassland plants, the team set up 15 time-lapse (延时) cameras in the Swiss Alps. The method allowed Alison and his colleagues to investigate nighttime visitors. In all, the team collected more than 164,000 photos of red clover flowers, with 44 of these images capturing visits by insect pollinators.
Most of these flower honey seekers—some 61%—were bumblebees. But a substantial proportion (比例)―34%―were moths, mostly large yellow underwings, visiting in the early morning hours. Butterflies and either a wasp or another bee species finished the other 5 percent of the visits.
“Moths are well-known as regular pollinators of many other plants, but their role in clover pollination seems to have been overlooked.” Alison says. He and his colleagues also investigated how many seeds the clover flowers produced, and they had a happy surprise.
“It’s clear that the role of nighttime moths as pollinators of crops has largely been ignored,” Funamoto, a pollination biologist at the University of Tokyo, says. “I think future studies will reveal many plant species that are thought to be dependent on pollination by daytime insects are actually pollinated by nighttime moths, to some extent.”
1. What was deeply rooted in scientists’ mind about clover pollination?| A．It posed risks to other plants. |
| B．It merely depended on bees. |
| C．It ruined the production of clover seeds. |
| D．It failed to be carried out at night. |
| A．To record pollinators visiting grassland plants. |
| B．To study the effect of climate change on insect pollinators. |
| C．To record the changeable conditions in the Swiss Alps. |
| D．To capture more images of different insects. |
| A．They felt astonished at that. |
| B．They thought it was disappointing. |
| C．They believed it needed further confirmation. |
| D．They thought it was influenced by many factors. |
| A．Moths Draw the Attention of Researchers |
| B．Scientists Are Looking for Night Pollinators |
| C．Scientists Find a Way to Help Clover Flowers |
| D．Moths Are Found to Pollinate Clover Flowers at Night |
【推荐2】Bees are unimaginably territorial（地盘意识强的）, fighting to death to defend their home with painful stings (螫刺). But killer bees are particularly fierce. They appeared after African bees were imported to Brazil in the 1950s. By the 1980s, they had spread north to the United States, outgunning native bees along the way. Their massive attacks have killed more than 1,000 people.
Mario Palma, a biochemist at Sao Paulo State University in Brazil, who studies social behavior in bees, wanted to understand the basis of this aggression. So he and his colleagues swung a black leather ball in front of some killer bees and collected the bees whose stingers got stuck in the ball during the attack. They also collected killer bees that remained in the cell. The analysis suggested that killer bee brains have two proteins that—in the aggressive bees—quickly break into pieces to form a so-called “neuropeptide( 神 经 肽 )”, they reported this week in the Journal of Proteome Research.
Palma and his colleagues already knew that bee brains have these two proteins. “We were astonished when we identified some very simple neuropeptides, which were produced in a few seconds,” Palma said. Killer bees that remained in the cell did not make these neuropeptides, he reported. And when his team put these neuropeptides into young, less aggressive bees, they “became aggressive like older individuals”.
Palma added that these neuropeptides also increase the production of energy and alarm chemicals. They could also encourage the nerve cells in killer bees needed to make the stinging attack. “There is a fine biochemical regulation in the killer bee brain,” he said. Researchers have found these neuropeptides in other insects, but few had associated them with “fight” behavior.
1. What is special about bees?| A．They are particularly fierce. | B．They show territorial behavior. |
| C．They were imported to Brazil. | D．They live in harmony with other insects. |
| A．There are two proteins in killer bee brains. |
| B．Young killer bees are fiercer than older ones. |
| C．The killer bees make an attack immediately. |
| D．Killer bee brains produce neuropeptide quickly. |
| A．Killer bees fight to death to protect their home. |
| B．Aggressive killer bees killed many people with neuropeptide. |
| C．Neuropeptide makes killer bees have “fight” behavior. |
| D．Neuropeptide has a great effect on killer bees. |
【推荐3】“We thought dogs would behave like children under age 5, but now we guess that perhaps dogs can understand when someone is dishonest,” says Huber at the University of Vienna in Austria. “Maybe they think, ‘This person has the same knowledge as me, but is giving me the wrong information.’ It’s possible they could see that as intentionally misleading, which is lying.”
Once that trust was established, the team had the dogs witness another person move the food from the first to the second bowl. The communicators were either in the room, and also witnessed the switch, or were briefly absent and so apparently unaware that the food had been switched. In either case, the communicators would later recommend the first bowl, which was now empty.
In previous versions of this experiment with children under age 5, the participants reacted in particular ways. They would typically ignore the communicator who gave honest but misleading advice on where the food was. However, if the communicator had been in the room and witnessed the switch, but still recommended the first (now empty) bowl, young children were actually much more likely to follow the communicator’s knowingly misleading suggestion.
This may be because the children and non-human primates (灵长类) trusted the communicator over the evidence of their own eyes, says Huber.
The dogs in the new experiment, however, weren’t so trusting of lying communicators, much to the researchers’ surprise, says Huber. Half of the dogs would follow the communicator’s misleading advice if the communicator hadn’t witnessed the food switch. But about two-thirds of dogs ignored the communicator who had witnessed the food switch and still recommended the now-empty bowl. These dogs simply went to the bowl filled with food instead. “They did not rely on the communicator anymore,” says Huber.
1. What do Huber’s words in paragraph 1 imply?| A．Dogs won’t believe people any longer. |
| B．Dogs can be trained to act like children. |
| C．Dogs can understand everything humans mean. |
| D．Dogs are a lot cleverer than we thought. |
| A．To draw a conclusion. | B．To sum up the reason. |
| C．To make a comparison. | D．To lead in a new experiment. |
| A．The one who moved the food. |
| B．The one who didn’t see the food switch. |
| C．The one who moved the food and recommended the wrong bowl. |
| D．The one who saw the food switch and recommended the wrong bowl. |
| A．Dogs can sometimes tell when people are lying. |
| B．Dogs are cleverer than children under age 5. |
| C．We can train dogs to find food in different ways. |
| D．We should be honest like dogs. |
【推荐1】When Abdus Salam looks across the garbage-filled river near his home in one of the major clothing producing districts in Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh, he remembers a time before the factories moved in. “When I was young there were no clothing factories here. We used to catch fish in the river,” he said. The river beside him is now black like ink. Waste from nearby clothing factories has polluted the water.
Fashion is responsible for up to one-fifth of industrial water pollution, thanks in part to weak management in producer countries like Bangladesh, the world’s second biggest clothing producing country, where wastewater is commonly differed directly into rivers and streams. The wastewater not only hurts the environment, but pollutes drinking water sources.
Once in waterways, poisonous chemicals from dye (染料) build up to the point where light is prevented from coming through the surface, reducing plants’ ability to photosynthesize (进行光合作用). This lowers oxygen levels in the water, killing plants and animals. These chemicals and heavy metals can also build up in the body, increasing the risk of serious illnesses and skin problems. What’s worse, chemical-rich water is also used to water crops, with one recent study finding that dyes were present in vegetables and fruit grown around Savar, just north of Dhaka.
Luckily, change is coming. In Bangladesh, there are signs clothing producers are taking environmental responsibility more seriously, with brands committing to initiatives, such as the Partnership for Cleaner Textile, that title water, energy and chemical use in the industry. Shahab Uddin of Bangladesh’s Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change said a range of measures were being taken to address pollution, including updating conservation and environmental laws, giving fines to polluters, setting up centralized treatment plants, and working with international development partners to improve wastewater treatment. And under a new environmental policy called Zero Liquid Discharge, dyeing, finishing and washing industries must submit a time-bound plan to reduce, recycle and reuse wastewater.
“There is definitely from for further improvement. These challenges cannot be solved overnight,” Uddin added.
1. What is the main purpose of the first paragraph?| A．To blame clothing factories for river pollution. | B．To introduce Bangladesh’s clothing industry. |
| C．To call for the closure of clothing factories. | D．To recall the good old days in Dhaka. |
| A．It is the biggest clothing producing country. | B．It causes 20%of the world’s water pollution. |
| C．It has poor control over wastewater discharge. | D．It suffers from serious drinking water shortages. |
| A．The difficulty of dealing with poisonous chemicals in waterways. |
| B．The damaging effects of wastewater from the fashion industry. |
| C．The chemicals from dyes negatively affecting photosynthesis. |
| D．The way to remove harmful chemicals from the food chain. |
| A．Hand in a plan to treat wastewater. | B．Establish centralized treatment plants. |
| C．Pay high fines for discharging wastewater. | D．Join international groups to deal with wastewater. |
【推荐2】A city in Netherlands will become the first in the world to ban meat advertisements from public spaces in an effort to reduce consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. The ban also covers holiday flights, fossil fuels and cars that run on fossil fuels. The ban is delayed until 2024 due to existing contracts with companies that sell the products.
Haarlem, which lies to the west of Amsterdam and has a population of about 160,000, will bring the ban into effect from 2024 after meat was added to a list of products deemed to contribute to the climate crisis. Advertisements will not be allowed on Haarlem’s buses, shelters and screens in public spaces, prompting complaints from the meat sector that the government is “going too far in telling people what’s best for them”.
Recent studies suggest global food production is responsible for one-third of all planet-heating emissions, with the use of animals for meat accounting for twice the pollution of producing plant-based foods. Forests that absorb carbon dioxide are cut down for the food of animals while fertilisers used for growing their feed are rich in nitrogen (氮), which can contribute to air pollution, water pollution and climate change. Livestock also produces large quantities of methane (甲烷), a powerful greenhouse gas.
Zlggy Klazes, a councillor from the GroenLinks party, said she had not known the city would be the world’s first to enforce such a policy when she proposed it. She told the Haarlem105 radio channel: “We are not about what people are baking and roasting in their own kitchen; if people want to continue eating meat, it’s fine. We can’t tell people there’s a climate crisis and meanwhile, encourage them to buy products that are part of the cause. Of course, there are a lot of people who find the decision shocking and unreasonable, but there are also a lot of people who think it’s fine.”
1. What does the meat sector think of the ban?| A．Neutral. | B．Disapproving. |
| C．Indifferent. | D．Positive. |
| A．Meat consumption causes more pollution. |
| B．Methane mainly comes from livestock. |
| C．Nitrogen is harmful to the environment. |
| D．People cut down trees for human habitation. |
| A．She is the first to ban meat advertisement. |
| B．She emphasizes the advantage of eating meat. |
| C．She is in favor of banning meat advertising. |
| D．She cares about what people cook in the kitchen. |
| A．Fossil fuels are banned in Dutch city. |
| B．A city in Netherlands decreases meat production. |
| C．Greenhouse gas emissions are limited in Dutch city. |
| D．A city in Netherlands bans meat advertisements in public. |
【推荐3】The 16-year-old Australian Shalise Leesfield couldn’t think of a better creature to meet than a gray nurse shark when diving off the coast. “I know how scary they can look, but I promise they are the sweetest animals ever,” she says. But they are under threat.
Leesfield is working with Cate Faehrmann, member of parliament (议会) and marine spokesperson for the Australian Greens party in New South Wales, to legalize protection of the sharks. Faehrmann says that she’s proud to have worked with Leesfield. “Shalise is part of a new generation of campaigners speaking up for the environment and our future is a lot brighter as a result of their passion and determination to save our planet and our precious wildlife.”
For someone who hasn’t yet left high school, this sounds like an impressive achievement, but Leesfield’s track record in conservation goes beyond protecting gray nurse sharks. Aged 11, after noticing the damage plastic pollution can do to the marine environment, she started a campaign that called for fishing line collection bins to be set in her local area to reduce ocean pollution. It resulted in a government environmental grant worth more than $48,000.Since then, she has founded “Shalise’s Ocean Support” which aims to inspire people to take care of the environment, and started a “Plastic Free Schools” website which advises teachers and students on reducing school waste.
Leesfield’s devotion to the cause comes from a deep love of the ocean that grew from her experiences of diving. “Falling in love with the sea made my passion grow and made me stand up for what I really love,” she says.
She believes that the younger generation needs to get out of the mindset that saving the environment is something that should be “left up to the adults”. “We are the ones that will take over the Earth and the ocean,” she says.
1. What does Shalise Leesfield think of gray nurse sharks?| A．They are wonderful creatures. | B．Their behaviors are human-like. |
| C．Their looks are attractive. | D．They are threatening. |
| A．By cooperating with her teachers. |
| B．By helping make related laws. |
| C．By calling on adults to participate. |
| D．By starting a campaign to raise money. |
| A．Leesfiled has become a candidate of parliament. |
| B．Leesfield has done much to protect the environment. |
| C．Leesfield successfully attracted the government’s attention to pollution. |
| D．Leesfiled persuaded teachers and students to reduce school waste. |
| A．A new field for teenagers to explore |
| B．A chance to contact sharks through diving |
| C．A new website—Plastic Free Schools in Australia |
| D．An Australian teenager on a mission to protect sharks |
【推荐1】A new UK-based study on the effects of artificial light on local insect populations found that light pollution from street lamps disturbs insect behavior, leading to an overall loss of insects.
“We found that street lighting strongly reduced moth (飞蛾) population compared with unlit sites... and affected moth development,” the study stated.
The study’s results apply to a localized level and cannot be used to determine whether national-level populations are declining due to light pollution. However, it adds further weight to existing research on how light pollution affects ecosystems and biodiversity hotspots and highlights the need to shift to alternatives in artificial light that would tone down these effects.
The effects on insect populations are wide-ranging. More specifically, artificial light affects how moths lay their eggs and puts them at a higher risk of being spotted by predators (捕食性动物). It also affects moths’ feeding behavior, which subsequently leads to declines in their population too. Light pollution thus joins a host of factors, such as climate change and deforestation, as one of the determinants of insect population decline.
While previous studies examined the effects of lighting on bats and other vertebrates, this study focused on their prey—creatures lower down in the food chain—and, as a result, complementing (补充) previous studies. Therefore, the study is concerning because it suggests an alarming loss of insects caused by artificial light, which will have far-reaching consequences for all the wildlife and ecosystems that depend on them.
Moreover, white light-emitting diodes (LEDs) were found to have the worst impact on local insects and ecosystem processes. The researchers thus call for shifting away from white LEDs or employing processes such as motion sensors to make the lights less bright and changing colors and filters to avoid the negative impacts. If the findings of the study are anything to go by, local insect ecosystems will suffer considerable consequences- which will, in turn, affect the wildlife that depends on them and, ultimately, could perhaps even upset agricultural balances.
1. What can we learn about the new study?| A．It is conducted on a local basis. |
| B．It highlights the value of artificial light. |
| C．It focuses on the preservation of insects. |
| D．It matters more than the existing research. |
| A．It may put them in danger. |
| B．It prevents them from feeding. |
| C．It may lead to their extinction. |
| D．It disables them from laying eggs. |
| A．To shift to green alternatives. |
| B．To adopt brighter colors and filters. |
| C．To avoid adopting white-light LEDs. |
| D．To replace them with motion sensors. |
| A．Artificial Light and Wildlife Protection |
| B．Light Pollution and the Endangered Species |
| C．Artificial Light Has Negative Effects on Agriculture |
| D．Light Pollution from Street Lights Could Drive Insect Loss |
【推荐2】Last year, a popular restaurant released a live stream of a family dining in it, without asking their permission. After finding out what the restaurant was doing, the family showed their objection, but the restaurant ignored it and insisted that they had the right to do it. Moreover, they tried to silence the family, saying that their behavior was damaging the restaurant's image. This event has caused a debate on the violation of privacy and portrait rights by webcasts.
It doesn't bother some people when their images are unconsciously recorded by cameras and shown through live streams on different online platforms. They may even enjoy appearing on screens and cooperate with some businesses. In that way, the restaurant can have more public exposure and thus attract more customers, which is their purpose of webcasting. However, others including the family mentioned above, are against it. The family thought that their portrait rights were violated, considering no one had asked if it was okay to use the images of them. They found intolerable that their actions captured by the camera were webcast live to millions of viewers, not to mention the fact that some of them were not so decent. Thus they demanded an apology from restaurant.
People may behave in a relaxed way when eating or resting, and they don't want others to see them in this way. Thus, from a legal perspective, if businesses webcast their customers for commercial reasons, they have violated customers portrait rights.
Webcasting someone without his or her consent amounts to a violation of portrait rights, which is getting increasingly common these days as cellphone webcasting is growing in popularity for technical convenience, However, public awareness of privacy protection is still falling behind. More should be done to make sure webcasting is developing sustainably, without violating people's legal rights.
1. What is the major issue argued in the passage?| A．A famous restaurant published a live stream of a family dining in it. |
| B．The family showed their objection to the famous restaurant's webcast. |
| C．The restaurant ignored the objection and insisted they had the right to do it. |
| D．The restaurant claimed that the family was damaging the restaurant's image. |
| A．Customers enjoy appearing on screens. |
| B．Customers cooperate with some businesses. |
| C．Customers are shown through live streams online. |
| D．Customers are unconsciously recorded by cameras. |
| A．Businesses webcast customers live according to their agreement. |
| B．Businesses webcast customers for commercial reasons and pay them. |
| C．Businesses webcast customers improper actions with their permission. |
| D．Businesses webcast customers behaving in a relaxed way without informing them. |
| A．Public awareness of privacy protection is increasing |
| B．A famous restaurant released a live stream of a family |
| C．How can people behave in a relaxed way when having a rest |
| D．A debate on whether webcasts violate privacy and portrait rights |
| A．Objective. |
| B．Negative. |
| C．Positive. |
| D．Subjective. |
【推荐3】While the ability to copy sounds is uncommon among animals, only a few species can adjust their voice to sound higher or lower. Seals are one of these animals and they copy humans like parrots. They change the pitch (音高) of their calls depending on the sounds of their surroundings.
Now scientists have found baby seals are on the short list of animals with volume control. “By looking at seals which may be capable of learning sounds, we hope to understand how humans acquire speech and finally why we are such chatty animals,” said Dr. Ravignani, one of these scientists.
The scientists studied eight harbor baby seals which were being held in a center before being released back into the wild. They recorded noises from the nearby sea before playing them back to these seals at volumes ranging from no sound to higher sound, but keeping the same tone height as the animal’s calls. They then recorded the baby seals’ calls to see whether they changed their tone of voice to match these sounds. Baby seals lowered their tone of voice when they heard louder sea noises. But one of them displayed the so-called Lombard effect, producing louder calls when the noise got louder. This is also typical of human speech, as people generally raise their voices to be better understood in noisy situations.
Baby seals have a more advanced control over their calls than assumed up. This control seems to be already present at an early age. This is astonishing, as few other animals seem capable of that. However, baby seals didn’t produce more or longer calls when exposed to different levels of sea sounds.
Dr. Ravignani said, “To date, humans seem to be the only mammals with direct connections between the cortex—the outer layer of the brain, and the larynx—what we use to produce tone of voice. These results show that seals may be the most promising species to find these direct connections and uncover the mystery of speech.”
1. What are the scientists studying about baby seals?| A．Their ability to adjust their volume. |
| B．Their ability to acquire human speech. |
| C．Their ability to communicate with parrots. |
| D．Their ability to change their surroundings. |
| A．They became more active. | B．They kept the same tone height. |
| C．They made more or longer calls. | D．They lowered their tone of voice. |
| A．A man speaks louder at a noisy market. |
| B．A student can learn better in a quiet library. |
| C．A salesgirl with a smile can sell more houses. |
| D．A talkative businessman is more likely to succeed. |
| A．The mystery of speech is difficult to uncover. |
| B．Scientists should make good use of seals in the sea. |
| C．The results of the study help to know human speech. |
| D．Different parts of human brain should be further studied. |
