【推荐1】A bird called hermit warbler breeds（繁殖）along the U.S.West Coast. They all kind of look the same and they have a cute little yellow head and a gray body. Typically, birds sing the same one song within one region because the song attracts mates. And different regions can have slightly different dialects of the song. But recently biologists noticed that there are some places that are exceptions to this rule-in some places, there is more than one song in the same place. “So we were curious why that would be the case.” Brett Furnas, a bio-statistician at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said.

To investigate, Furnas and his team recorded lots of hermit warbler’s songs. In 10 years, they went to 100 different locations throughout the state and all the different potential habitats of the species. The researchers analyzed all the hermit warbler songs they collected and discovered that the hermit warbler doesn’t just break the usual one-song-per-region rule-they positively demolish it, for the researchers found, actually, an amazing 35 different dialects across the state.

But why would the bird repeatedly “alter its song” when any changes could affect its ability to attract a mate? Basically, hermit warblers are very sensitive to fire in the short term, so they will abandon an area temporarily, even if it’s just a low-severity fire that doesn’t destroy the whole stand. And then other hermit warblers singing different dialects move into this area. And then they end up, maybe a few years later, with two or more different dialects in the same place.

Furnas says that such musical diversity might actually work in the hermit warblers’ favor. “They may have greater resiliency（恢复力）to things like climate change. So understanding that helps us to make better conservation decisions to protect biodiversity. But it’s also what makes the outdoors interesting and a beautiful place to be, because even though you might not know it’s a hermit warbler, your experience outdoors is enriched by that diversity.”

【推荐2】Do you know anyone born in the Year of the Tiger? What’s their personality like? Are they brave, strong and sympathetic? If so, then they are a typical “tiger”. In Chinese culture, tigers symbolize power, energy, protection, generosity and unpredictability.     1     . That is why you can see in China images of tigers on the walls of temples and houses to ward off (挡住) disasters and danger.

Tigers have an important cultural significance not just in China, but across Asia. In the book Life of Pi, Canadian writer Yann Martel chose a Bengal tiger as the partner for Indian boy Pi on his survival adventure in the Pacific Ocean.     2     . It takes the tiger as its main theme when it tries to combine Eastern elements with European design.

In the West, lions are considered as the king of all beasts. Brave warriors were given the name “the lion”. But tigers are also seen as a very powerful animal.     3     , you can say to them, “easy tiger” in English. Another famous phrase is “Eye of the Tiger”, which means fierceness and strength.

    4     . If you ask my mom, she will tell you that my most precious toy while growing up was my toy tiger. I first learned about the beauty of tigers as a child, while watching animal documentaries. As a young animal lover, I felt so sad that they were an endangered species and I wanted to protect them. I hope that more people can learn about tigers.     5     .

Just like tigers serve as a symbol of protection in Chinese culture, I do hope my favorite animal will live freely in the eco-friendly environment.

【推荐1】Sri Nihal Tammana, age 13, of Edison, New Jersey, was named a winner of the 2022 Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes. The Barron Prize annually honors 25 outstanding young leaders who have made a significant positive impact on people, their communities, and the environment.

Nihal founded Recycle My Battery to promote and facilitate the recycling of used batteries. His nonprofit places free battery recycling bins(箱子)and educates young people and adults about battery recycling. In just three years he has built a team of more than 250 student volunteers across the globe who have recycled nearly 200,000 batteries and educated millions of people. Nihal learned at age 10 that 15 billion batteries are thrown away each year and that most end up in landfills(垃圾填埋地)where they pollute groundwater, harm the ecosystem, and can cause catastrophic fires. Inspired to tackle the problem, he began collecting used batteries from his community. He put them in free recycling bins at stores like Staples until he was told he was bringing too many and had to stop.

Undeterred, he reached out for help from Call2Recycle, the largest battery recycling nonprofit in North America. Call2Recycle agreed to assist and provided recycling bins for free, which were placed in schools, libraries, and other public places. Nihal’s organization now operates across the U.S. and is expanding to other countries including Canada, Switzerland, and India. “Earth gives us so much — oxygen, food, water — everything! So it’s important that we give something back when we can,” says Nihal.

The Barron Prize was founded in 2001 by author T. A. Barron. “Nothing is more inspiring than stories about heroic people who have truly made a difference to the world,” says T. A. Barron. “And we need our heroes today more than ever. Not celebrities, but heroes — people whose character can inspire us all. That is the purpose of the Barron Prize: to shine the spotlight on these amazing young people so that their stories will inspire others.”

【推荐3】Cities have been described as essential to climate change solutions, but they can also raise the kinds of ecologists that will bring us into a more comprehensive biological future.

As a black wildlife biologist from Philadelphia, I stood out among my coworkers. My presence in ecology has challenged assumptions about not only what a biologist looks like, but also where a biologist comes from. In the U.S., ecology was and is mainly white and conducted in rural landscapes, but I had no history of camping, fishing, hunting or hiking. I had yet to recognize that Philadelphia, with its four seasons and richness of squirrels (松鼠), row homes and festivals, was actually my first ecological classroom. There I witnessed wild cats eating birds and rats, people shooting bats from their homes and snakes being killed by lawn mowers (割草机). This is as much ecology in action as anything we witness in fields and forests.

Urban wild animals exhibit many features and behaviors that set them apart from their rural twins: they may be bigger, eat more diverse food sources, are active at different times of the day, move differently and have different personalities. Some biologists argue they are even “smarter”. Besides, urban wildlife balances more risks—such as road chemical poisons and diseases from domestic animals—with rewards. Some of those rewards come from humans providing food and some from the distribution of our parks and water bodies.

In our professional lives as biologists, living with such wild animals can make us more tolerant of species diversity, which can benefit the natural world. Nature is no longer only primitive wilderness but includes sounds of human laughter and garbage trucks. We expect more biologists from urban settings because urban environments naturally train keen observers who are the future of ecology.