科学美国人60秒 SSS Arctic Pollinator Faces Uncertain Future
时间：2019-01-17 作者：英语课 分类：2016年Scientific American(十)月
The Greenland High Arctic is a bare, sparse 1 place. Rather than tall trees, it has tundra 2—ground hugging vegetation—and rugged 3, Lord-of-the-Rings-style vistas 4. "Well I don't know, it's not exactly New Zealand, but kind of similar landscape."
Mikko Tiusanen, an ecologist at Helsinki University in Finland. "The winter season is like six, seven months. So everything basically happens during the short summer season." Including the white-yellow bloom of mountain avens, a hardy 5 arctic shrub 6. "Even though it's small it can be over 100 yrs old. It's pretty good at surviving harsh conditions."
Tiusanen and his colleagues set out to census 7 which of the many local insects visit mountain avens by summer, and help with pollination 8. So they planted 2100 sticky flower lookalikes, as traps, and identified stuck visitors by their DNA 9.
Two-thirds of all local insect species visited. But it was one particular fly, a relative of the humble 10 housefly, that showed up most often in those spots where the tundra shrubs 11 had successfully set seed. Meaning more flies appeared to be a good thing for the avens. The study appears in the Proceedings 12 of the Royal Society: B. [Mikko Tiusanen et al, One fly to rule them all—muscid flies are the key pollinators in the Arctic]
Here's the bad news: a 2013 study found that the Arctic flowering season is shortening. The numbers of fly pollinators is down, as is the the number of visits by these fly pollinators. Which could be bad for mountain avens—and beyond. "One could expect that also the other pollinators and flower visitors visiting the mountain avens could get more uncommon 13 and even become extinct in the long run." Meaning "shoo fly" could spell trouble for the life of the tundra.
—Christopher Intagliata
[The above text is a transcript 14 of this podcast.]
- The teacher's house is in the suburb where the houses are sparse.老师的家在郊区，那里稀稀拉拉有几处房子。
- The sparse vegetation will only feed a small population of animals.稀疏的植物只够喂养少量的动物。
- The arctic tundra is at the top of the world around the North Pole.北极冻原是指北极点周边的地区，是世界最高的地方。
- There is a large amount of methane gas under the Siberian tundra.西伯利亚的冻土地带之下有大量的甲烷气体。
- Football players must be rugged.足球运动员必须健壮。
- The Rocky Mountains have rugged mountains and roads.落基山脉有崇山峻岭和崎岖不平的道路。
- This new job could open up whole new vistas for her. 这项新工作可能给她开辟全新的前景。
- The picture is small but It'shows broad vistas. 画幅虽然不大，所表现的天地却十分广阔。
- The kind of plant is a hardy annual.这种植物是耐寒的一年生植物。
- He is a hardy person.他是一个能吃苦耐劳的人。
- There is a small evergreen shrub on the hillside.山腰上有一小块常绿灌木丛。
- Moving a shrub is best done in early spring.移植灌木最好是在初春的时候。
- A census of population is taken every ten years.人口普查每10年进行一次。
- The census is taken one time every four years in our country.我国每四年一次人口普查。
- The flowers get pollination by insects.这些花通过昆虫授粉。
- Without sufficient pollination,the growth of the corn is stunted.没有得到充足的授粉，谷物的长势就会受阻。
- DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
- Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。
- In my humble opinion,he will win the election.依我拙见，他将在选举中获胜。
- Defeat and failure make people humble.挫折与失败会使人谦卑。
- The gardener spent a complete morning in trimming those two shrubs. 园丁花了整个上午的时间修剪那两处灌木林。
- These shrubs will need more light to produce flowering shoots. 这些灌木需要更多的光照才能抽出开花的新枝。
- He was released on bail pending committal proceedings. 他交保获释正在候审。
- to initiate legal proceedings against sb 对某人提起诉讼
- Such attitudes were not at all uncommon thirty years ago.这些看法在30年前很常见。
- Phil has uncommon intelligence.菲尔智力超群。
- A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
- They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。