1 . French adventurer-scientist Roland Bourdeix has a grand vision for how to preserve a thousand or more genetic varieties of coconut trees. Imagine, as he does, turning dozens or hundreds of remote Pacific islands into coconut sanctuaries. Each island would contain just a few varieties of these trees.
But why? Are coconut trees, the source of oil and newly trendy coconut water, somehow in danger?
Not exactly. At least not for now. There are plenty of coconut palms all over the tropics, and coconut production has been slowly growing. But that masks a potential long-term problem, says Stephan Weise, Deputy Director General for Research at Bioversity International in Rome. Most coconut production comes from a small part of the coconut’s gene pool (基因库). Producers rely on a handful of high-producing varieties or hybrids (杂交品种). Those commercial varieties are slowly overwhelming (压倒)traditional varieties that people in the tropics have grown thousands of years. Those are the storehouse of the coconut’s genetic diversity: All of the colors, shapes, tastes, and survival tools that this species possesses — and may need again someday.
Conserving (保护)such diversity in agricultural crops is a familiar problem, but the situation with coconuts is a little bit different, Weise says.
First of all, scientists can’t yet preserve a particular kind of coconuts in refrigerated “gene banks,” as they do with standard seeds. They can’t dry, freeze, and preserve coconuts for decades. Instead, coconuts have to be preserved as living trees, growing outside.
This leads to the second problem. Coconut varieties growing in the open air often won’t reproduce themselves successfully. Their flowers pick up pollen (花粉)from other trees nearby, which often turn out to be commercial varieties or hybrids. And when that happens, some genes may be lost altogether.
So what’s the secret to preserving these coconuts? For starters, scientists have set up a dozen open-air coconut gene banks. They’re reproducing each variety through careful hand-pollination of the trees. But Weise says that’s expensive and labor-intensive.
This brings us back to Roland Bourdeix’s crazy-sounding idea. The key to preserving coconut biodiversity more cheaply, he thinks, is isolation. And there’s no more isolated place than a lonely Pacific island. Just convince people on one of these islands to plant coconut trees from a single variety, and the problem is practically solved. He’s found several islands where the inhabitants are willing to help turn his vision into reality. One of them is well-known already: The Tetiaroa Atoll in French Polynesia, an idyllic retreat once owned by Marlon Brando.
1. Why is it important to preserve the traditional varieties of coconut?| A．The traditional varieties are more commercial. |
| B．They can help explain the history of people living in the tropics. |
| C．They contain genetic diversity. |
| D．It can help the tourism on remote Pacific islands. |
| A．They freeze them. | B．They hand-pollinate them. |
| C．They grow them out of labs. | D．They mix them with other breeds. |
| A．They are owned by celebrities, which can help promote public awareness of the issue. |
| B．They are among the most isolated places in the world. |
| C．The inhabitants on the islands are innocent enough to be deceived. |
| D．The labor on those islands is cheaper. |
| A．A Crazy Gardener |
| B．Remote Islands for Preserving Coconut Genes |
| C．Advantages of Traditional Coconut Trees |
| D．Loss of Coconut Genes |
When people think of plants, they usually think of gardens, parks, or even jungles. One place that does not usually come to mind is the desert. However, some deserts contain many plants that are able to grow and survive under difficult conditions.
Deserts can reach temperatures of 50 degrees or more in the daytime and can also drop below 0 degrees at night. This is a huge temperature difference under which desert plants have to live. Besides the high and low temperatures, all deserts receive very little water in the form of rain; sometimes it doesn’t rain for months. So, how do desert plants get water when there is no rain?
There are three main ways plants survive in the desert. First, some desert plants grow without leaves. Others have developed special ways of storing whatever water they can find, such as growing a waxy leaf covering that helps keep water inside the leaf. These plants can survive for weeks or months on the water collected from just one rainfall.
A second way desert plants survive even in the most difficult conditions is by growing very long roots. These roots spread out and search for any water they can find. Once they find water, the roots suck up as much as they can and then hold it, only allowing the plant above the ground to have small amounts at a time.
The third way plants survive in the desert is by “sleeping”. Some plants can turn off almost all their processes and just remain inactive, almost as if dead, while they wait for rain. When the rain does come, they quickly drink up every drop they possibly can and burst back into activity.
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