1 . We all love gardens with beautiful flowers and leafy plants, choosing colourful species to plant in and around our homes. Plant scientists, however, may have fallen for the same trick in what they choose to research.
The research, published in Nature Plants, found there’s a clear bias (偏好) among scientists toward visually striking plants. This means they’re more likely chosen for scientific study and conservation efforts, regardless of their ecological or evolutionary significance. White, red and pink flowers were more likely to feature in research literature than those with dull, or green and brown flowers. Plants with tall stems also stood out. Plants with blue flowers — the rarest colour in nature — received most research attention. But interestingly, a plant’s rarity didn’t significantly influence research attention. The team had expected to find more endangered species among those most studied, it did not either.
This bias may direct conservation efforts away from less visually pleasing plants that are more important to the health of the overall ecosystem or in need of urgent conservation. A bias toward colorful plants could mean we may be missing species that could be in rapid decline toward extinction, and we don’t have even basic information on seed banking for conservation. This is not a tragedy, but something to consider when planning future work.
We often don’t know how important a species is until it’s thoroughly researched. In Australia, for example, milkweeds are an important food source for butterflies, while dull-flowered mat rushes are now known to be the home for rare native sun moths. From habitats to food, these plants provide foundational ecological services, yet many milkweed and mat rush species are rare, and largely neglected in conservation research.
The study shows the need to take biases into consideration in science and in the choice of species studied, for the best conservation and ecological outcomes. People should be more alert in all parts of the conservation process, from the science to listing species for protection.
1. Which of the following plants are highly researched?| A．Plants which are rare. | B．Plants with blue flowers. |
| C．Plants with brown flowers. | D．Plants which are endangered. |
| A．The efforts to save endangered species. | B．The ways to conserve dull plants. |
| C．The reasons for plants’ extinction. | D．The consequences of plant bias. |
| A．They deserve thorough research. |
| B．They are closely connected with each other. |
| C．They have received the least research attention. |
| D．They are more important than beautiful flowers. |
| A．Are beautiful plants the most useful? | B．How can we save less attractive plants? |
| C．Which plant species need our help? | D．Are attractive plants researched more? |
2 . Plants have been essential to humans since the beginning of time. Their beauty inspires joy and many have healing functions. Now, a recent study has identified a super plant that cleans polluted air.
Noting that car pollution is a global concern, researchers set out to study how effective plants are at catching roadside particulates (颗粒), which cause many health problems. The scientists at the Royal Horticultural Society (RHS) in the UK chose the city of Reading to study how effective plants are at catching them. Since previous research has shown that trees help remove air pollution, researchers decided to explore the effectiveness of hedges (树篱). This study looked at three species: hawthorn, western red cedar, and franchet’s cotoneaster (栒子).
Researchers discovered that cotoneaster was the most effective after comparing particulates on leaves of these three plants. This is due to the plant’s hairy, complex leaf structure. Researchers also found that thick hedges over six feet high were best in reducing the concentration of particles. In the most heavily trafficked areas, cotoneaster took in 20 percent more pollution than the other shrubs, according to The Guardian.
Dr Tijana Blanusa, co-author of the study, told The Guardian, “We know that in just seven days a l-metre length of well-managed dense hedge will clean up the same amount of pollution that a car emits over a 500-mile drive.” Blanusa highly recommends planting cotoneasters along busy roads.
This is great news for urban planners, as well as gardeners. Although many people are affected by roadside pollution, an RHS survey shows that only six percent of gardeners choose specific plants that may improve air quality.
Originally from China, cotoneaster is a hardy evergreen that can tolerate cold. In addition to growing healthy in the UK, it can grow strong in areas from California up to the Pacific Northwest, into British Columbia and around the Great Lakes.
Thanks to this recent study, cotoneaster has proved to be extremely beneficial, enabling gardeners and landscapers to make a positive difference to the environment. The hope is that once these super plants are grown in urban gardens and on streets, they will clean the air plus provide intense beauty along the way.
1. What is paragraph 2 mainly about?| A．What plants bring people. |
| B．Why researchers did the study. |
| C．How serious air pollution is. |
| D．What progress scientists have made. |
| A．Its leaves are made of many different parts. |
| B．It can keep green in bad weather conditions. |
| C．It has a suitable height for reducing pollution. |
| D．Its leaves are thick in places with heavy traffic. |
| A．Positive. | B．Surprised. | C．Concerned. | D．Doubtful. |
| A．It requires a lot of care in urban areas. |
| B．It will affect the growth of other species. |
| C．It will help improve air quality once planted. |
| D．It can make people feel energetic all day long. |
3 . Mangroves are trees that typically grow in saltwater along coasts. But some red mangroves end up deep in the rainforests of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula. These plants live in freshwater along the San Pedro Martir River. That’s nearly 200 kilometers from the sea. Scientists wanted to know how these mangroves got trapped so far inland. Carlos Burelo was among them. He became curious about these mangroves on a childhood fishing trip there 35 years ago. Burelo saw that the roots of the mangroves grew above ground. This was different from the other trees.
Burelo’s team first investigated where the freshwater mangroves came from. They started by collecting their leaves and then compared their DNA to the leaves from coastal mangroves which were growing along the Gulf of Mexico. The DNA helped identify the origins of the mangroves on the San Pedro Martir River. They had started along the Gulf of Mexico, some 170 kilometers away from the river. The team discovered other evidence that this ecosystem had once been coastal. They discovered 112 other species in this region that are typically found near coasts.
The researchers looked at the soil too. “These sediments (沉积物)near the mangroves revealed exactly what we expected,” says Exequiel Ezcurra, an ecologist at the University of California. In all, the researchers turned up coastal stones, shells of sea snails and clay sediments rich in shell fragments (碎片). These led the researchers to conclude the area used to be part of the ocean long ago.
Computer models of how sea level has changed over time confirmed those findings. The models showed that when sea levels were higher in the past, the oceanmerged withthe lower basin of the San Pedro Martir River. That would have been around 150,000 to 130,000 years ago. This pushed red mangroves and other species inland.
“This discovery highlights how changes to the past climate have affected the world’s coastlines,” Ezcurra says. “It also offers a chance to better understand how future sea level rise may affect these ecosystems.”
1. What did Burelo notice as a child?| A．The changes of the sea water. |
| B．The problems facing the rainforest. |
| C．The unusual roots of some mangroves. |
| D．The influence of mangroves on fishing. |
| A．They are close in DNA. | B．They have different leaves. |
| C．They have different origins. | D．They both have many species. |
| A．The composition of the soil is very complicated. |
| B．The freshwater mangroves once grew in the sea. |
| C．Sea creatures influence the growth of mangroves. |
| D．The sea level has little change over the past years. |
| A．Developed from. | B．Changed into. |
| C．Depended on. | D．Combined with. |
