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SSS 2010-07-21

时间:2010-08-05 07:04:32

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(单词翻译)

The earth’s tropics teem1 with species. They’re far more biologically diverse than the cooler parts of the planet. And scientists have credited higher temperatures and greater amounts of sunlight. But a new study claims that the secret to tropical biodiversity isn’t necessarily high temperatures—it’s the steadiness of those temperatures the whole year ‘round.

When today’s biodiversity was taking shape millions of years ago, seasons as we know them didn’t really exist. So temperatures all over the planet were much more consistent than they are today, even in regions where the temps were low.

Researchers looked at insect diversity today at the temperate2 Harvard Forest in Massachusetts, in tropical Costa Rica and in the 53-million-year-old McAbee fossil bed in British Columbia. Which back then was steadily3 temperate. And ancient Canadian insect diversity was much more similar to modern Costa Rica’s than to the Harvard Forest’s. The work appears in the journal Paleobiology.

So we may have been thinking backwards—it’s not that the tropics have greater biodiversity. Could be that the seasons of today’s temperate zones have diminished the biodiversity that once flowered. And animaled.

Thanks for the minute for Scientific American’s 60-Second Science. I’m Steve Mirsky


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1 teem Cqwy4     
vi.(with)充满,多产
参考例句:
  • Good ideas teem in her head.她的头脑里好主意极多。
  • Fish teem in the Chinese waters.中国近海鱼产丰富。
2 temperate tIhzd     
adj.温和的,温带的,自我克制的,不过分的
参考例句:
  • Asia extends across the frigid,temperate and tropical zones.亚洲地跨寒、温、热三带。
  • Great Britain has a temperate climate.英国气候温和。
3 steadily Qukw6     
adv.稳定地;不变地;持续地
参考例句:
  • The scope of man's use of natural resources will steadily grow.人类利用自然资源的广度将日益扩大。
  • Our educational reform was steadily led onto the correct path.我们的教学改革慢慢上轨道了。

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