| A．Rainy. | B．Snowy. | C．Cloudy |
2 . Marine life (海洋生物) in Florida Keys is negatively influenced by two forces: human activity and climate change. The former involves fishing, tourism and diving while the latter causes a large increase in intense hurricanes. Fortunately, when the researchers of Florida Museum of Natural History started looking for sea urchins (海胆) on the ocean floor off the coast of Florida Keys in the summer of 2020, they uncovered their population had relatively been stable since the 1960s.
The researchers visited 27 sites along a 20-mile stretch of coast near Florida Keys looking for tracks that reflected the presence of burrowing echinoids (穴居海胆类动物). “The findings that burrowing echinoids have been highly resilient (有适应力的) against climate change and environmental pollution over the last 60 years was a huge discovery for us.” said study co-author Tobias Grun.
Grun said, “However, we know little about their current distribution, population size, and health. The reason is not the lack of interest by the scientific community but lies in that fieldwork is very expensive.”
As the climate crisis progresses, it’s important to understand why some marine creatures are more resilient in bearing the impacts of a worsening environment than others. Grun said, “Evolution may be at play. Some marine animals are very opportunistic. They can tolerate a wide range of abiotic factors like pH, temperature, and salinity, to name a few.”
Grun added, “At this point, our data show that burrowing echinoids are more resilient than many other marine species and are doing comparatively well. That does not mean that we can push our luck and keep going the way we are right now. Our study provides some hope that these creatures are resilient, but much more work is needed to translate our findings into a larger scale. The reasons for their resilience are also widely unknown.”
1. Which has an effect on the marine life in Florida Keys?| A．Wildfire. | B．Pollution. | C．Fishing. | D．Flood. |
| A．Indifferent. | B．Important. | C．Subjective. | D．Outdated |
| A．The goal. | B．The staff | C．The cost | D．The usage |
| A．It’s necessary to do further research. |
| B．It’s right to keep going the present way. |
| C．The reasons for sea urchins’ resilience are well known. |
| D．Fish are more resilient than other marine species. |
3 . The Chinese paddlefish (白鲟)-one of the world’s largest freshwater fish-has been announced extinct. Scientists say the paddlefish, also called the Chinese swordfish, is believed to have a lineage dating back at least 34 million years. With its long nose and mouth, the paddlefish could grow as long as seven meters.
But a research paper recently published in Science of the Total. Environment reported the paddlefish was now extinct. The researchers include scientists from the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences, Britain’s University of Kent and the University of South Bohemia in the Czech Republic.
The paper says the paddlefish was announced extinct for two reasons. It said that the fish was not able to survive because of widespread overfishing and damage to its native environment in the Yangtze River.
Researchers discovered 332 different species of fish in the Yangtze River in 2017 and 2018. But they did not find a single Chinese paddlefish They guessed the fish disappeared between 2005 and 2010. The extinction of the Chinese paddlefish was “a huge loss” to nature.
Pan Wenjing is a forest and ocean expert with Greenpeace East Asia. “The ecology of the Yangtze River is almost in ruins due to human activity in past decades” Pan said. She stressed that China had taken measures to improve the Yangtze’s environment, including a 10-year ban (禁令) on fishing.
After the extinction was reported in the news, some Chinese media and Internet users took a look back at the large creatures. Many people appeared to have not heard of the Chinese paddlefish before it was announced extinct.
“Every time I see the news of another species going extinct, heart starts to ache,” wrote one Weibo user. “Humans should not live alone on this planet,” the user added.
1. What do we know from Paragraph3?| A．Fishing in the Yangtze River. | B．Environment in the Yangtze River. |
| C．Researchers of the Chinese paddlefish. | D．The reasons for the Chinese paddlefish’s extinction. |
| A．No pain, no gain. | B．To protect animals is to protect humans. |
| C．Well begun is half done. | D．It’s never too late to mend. |
| A．Excited. | B．Sorry. | C．Shocked. | D．Curious. |
| A．Fishing is not allowed in the Yangtze River |
| B．Few people are familiar with the Chinese paddlefish |
| C．The Chinese paddlefish has been announced extinct |
| D．Damage to the environment has bad effects |
4 . It is not always easy to understand animal behavior, especially when it’s related to other species (物种). For decades, researchers have observed orca (虎鲸) attacking and even killing porpoises (鼠海豚) in the Pacific Northwest. But it confuses people that these expert hunters don’t eat them. So what’s going on here?
Southern Resident orcas are a different population of orcas that live in the Pacific Northwest. The lives of these orcas are closely tied to those of the salmon (鲑鱼). So if the salmon disappear, so too will the orca. But despite their preference for salmon, these whales are known to attack and kill other smaller marine mammals (海洋哺乳动物) without eating them.
To better understand this unusual behavior, an international team of researchers did a research and examined more than 60 years of recorded interactions between Southern Resident orcas and porpoises in the Salish Sea.
“Why don’t the Southern Residents just eat porpoises instead?” Deborah Giles of Wild Orca said. “It’s because fish-eating killer whales have a completely different ecology and culture from orcas that eat marine mammals. So we must conclude that their interactions with porpoises serve a different purpose, but this purpose has only been a guess until now.”
According to Giles and her colleagues’work, the orca may be attacking the porpoise as a form of social play. It is possible these large animals may be attacking the smaller mammals as a way to build up social cohesion (凝聚力). Similarly, the behavior could represent hunting practice, by which the orcas are practising their teamwork and cooperation skills for hunting salmon. Finally, the behavior could be a way of “mismothering” where the orca see the smaller porpoises as weaker or ill and so in need of care.
This work highlights the need for the protection of salmon populations in the area as well as the orcas’entire hunting range. The threat (威胁) to the salmon’s future is not just a threat to a single species, but an entire ecosystem.
1. Why did an international team of researchers do their study?| A．To find out a way to protect porpoises. |
| B．To make sure the reason why some orcas attack salmons. |
| C．To solve the problem of marine mammals’ living environment. |
| D．To better understand the strange behavior of Southern Resident orcas. |
| A．Porpoises. | B．Marine mammals. | C．Salmons. | D．Whales. |
| A．It’s a kind of social play with porpoises. |
| B．It is a practice to kill porpoises as their food. |
| C．The orcas may dislike the smaller porpoises. |
| D．It’s a way for the orcas to practice their hunting skills. |
| A．Positive. | B．Objective | C．Doubtful. | D．Uncertain. |
5 . After years of heated debate, gray wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone National Park. Fourteen wolves were caught in Canada and transported to the park. By last year, the Yellowstone wolf population had grown to more than 170 wolves.
Gray wolves once were seen here and there in the Yellowstone area and much of the continental United States, but they were gradually displaced by human development. By the 1920s, wolves had practically disappeared from the Yellowstone area. They went farther north into the deep forests of Canada, where there were fewer humans around.
The disappearance of the wolves had many unexpected results. Deer and elk populations — major food sources (来源) for the wolf — grew rapidly. These animals consumed large amounts of vegetation (植被), which reduced plant diversity in the park. In the absence of wolves, coyote populations also grew quickly. The coyotes killed a large percentage of the park’s red foxes, and completely drove away the park’s beavers.
As early as 1966, biologists asked the government to consider reintroducing wolves to Yellowstone Park. They hoped that wolves would be able to control the elk and coyote problems. Many farmers opposed the plan because they feared that wolves would kill their farm animals or pets.
The government spent nearly 30 years coming up with a plan to reintroduce the wolvers. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service carefully monitors and manages the wolf packs in Yellowstone. Today, the debate continues over how well the gray wolf is fitting in at Yellowstone. Elk, deer, and coyote populations are down, while beavers and red foxes have made a comeback. The Yellowstone wolf project has been a valuable experiment to help biologists decide whether to reintroduce wolves to other parts of the country as well.
1. What is the text mainly about?| A．Wildlife research in the United States. |
| B．Plant diversity in the Yellowstone area. |
| C．The conflict between farmers and gray wolves. |
| D．The reintroduction of wolves to Yellowstone Park. |
| A．Damage to local ecology. |
| B．Preservation of vegetation. |
| C．A decline in the park’s income. |
| D．An increase in the variety of animals. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Uncaring. | C．Positive. | D．Disapproving. |
6 . High-resolution (高分辨率) satellite imagery has been used to map every single tree in Africa, showing a technique that could help improve the monitoring of deforestation (森林砍伐) across the world. Florian Reiner at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues used images from sate lies to map canopy (树冠) across the entire African continent.
Modern sate lies usually catch tree canopies at a resolution of 30 meters — fine for measuring the size of forests, but less good at mapping individual trees. The satellite data Reiner and his colleagues used had a resolution of 3 meters, enabling the study to map all trees, including those not part of a forest.
The results suggest that 30 percent of all trees in Africa aren’t in a forest and instead are across farmland, savannah and urban areas. “Many countries in Africa lack thick forests, but have a lot of trees.” says Reiner. “These trees are extremely important to the local ecosystems, the people and the economy. By tracking every single tree, researchers can start to monitor how these trees are coping with climate change or whether they are sensitive to deforestation.” It could also improve the monitoring of reforestation efforts, which are growing in popularity as a way of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.
“At a local level, being able to consistently monitor when and where trees are disappearing or reappearing can lead to more actionable insights,” says John Francis at the Alan Turing Institute in London.
“The study is a proof of concept rather than a map ready for immediate commercial use,” says Reiner. “It’s research work. It’s showing what could be done,” he says. But he is already working with colleagues to scale up the tracking approach to cover the entire global canopy: “We’re hoping that this will be seen as a way forward in monitoring tree resources.”
1. Why is high-resolution satellite imagery used to map every single tree?| A．To know the exact height of the tree. |
| B．To have a clear picture of the canopy. |
| C．To help monitor the deforestation. |
| D．To improve the satellite technology. |
| A．Doubtful. | B．Disapproving. | C．Indifferent. | D．Favorable. |
| A．Protect the trees only in Africa. |
| B．Put the map into commercial use. |
| C．Track the entire global canopy. |
| D．Improve the imagery technology. |
| A．Ways to Measure the Size of Forests in Africa |
| B．Coping with Climate Change by Tracking Every Single Tree |
| C．A Map from the Satellite Ready for Immediate Commercial Use |
| D．High-resolution Satellite Imagery Used in Monitoring Deforestation |
7 . As we all know, waste is extremely bad for the environment. Let’s talk about why litter is harmful to our streets and towns, our drinking water, and sea animals.
Waste can have a bad influence on our cities. Cleaning up litter costs US taxpayers (纳税人) and businesses $11.5 billion each year.
As you can see, waste is harmful in many ways.
| A．Everybody wants to breathe fresh air. |
| B．That money could have been spent on parks. |
| C．How do you feel when you see people littering around? |
| D．In the future there might be more waste than fish in the ocean. |
| E．Litter can go into the soil and water and pollute our drinking water. |
| F．We need to stop littering for us, for the environment, and for the planet. |
| G．Did you know every day almost 8 million pieces of litter go into the ocean? |
World Tourism Day
When we travel, we can see different sights and experience different cultures. We can learn about new foods, languages and customs. We can also see
Anyway, World Tourism Day is a day when we celebrate the benefits of tourism and learn how
There are many great destinations in the UK. One of
In the heart of the South-West, Dartmoor National Park
In the South-West you will find plenty of attractive
Apart
10 . Humans are not the animal world’s only fashion followers. Tits (山雀) can be one of them, too. A study by Sonja Wild and Lucy Aplin shows that, given the chance, they make their nests (巢穴) with this season’s must-have color.
Dr. Wild and Dr. Aplin followed up on a study which noted that the blue tits preferred to put the same plants into their nests. This also suggested fashion-following—and it led Dr. Wild and Dr. Aplin to imagine that birds were studying the nests of others and copying them.
The birds they followed carried instruments on them. That allowed researchers to follow a large number of tits by their arrival at food dispensers (自动取物装置) throughout the woods.
One day in March 2021, Dr. Wild and Dr. Aplin used five dispensers with wool rather than food. Each contained two colors—either orange and pink or blue and purple—but all were rigged to give only one of these. This remained so until at least one local nest was seen to include wool from a dispenser. At that moment, the other color was discovered, too. As a comparison, Dr. Wild and Dr. Aplin set up four wool dispensers in a separate area, each providing two colors from the beginning.
Of 68 tits’ nests, 26 included wool from a dispenser. Of these, 18 were built after both colors had been gotten from all dispensers. Even so, 10 of that 18 included only the color of wool first chosen by a nest makers. By contrast (相比之下), all 8 nests with wool have mixed colors, which showed a clear difference in the record.
Tits, then, do seem to be “in fashion” when it comes to nest-building materials. Tits like those of the leaders of human fashions and it is worth more deep research.
1. Why are the same plants put into nests by the tits?| A．They want to beautify their nests. |
| B．They find no other plants. |
| C．They are used to doing this. |
| D．They want to keep warm. |
| A．Refused. | B．Warned. | C．Forced. | D．Arranged. |
| A．Testing colors. | B．Observing activities. |
| C．Comparing results. | D．Checking numbers. |
| A．Disappointed. | B．Supportive |
| C．Doubtful. | D．Unclear. |
