气候变化导致动物变形

贵州 罗跃梅

一项新的研究显示，一些恒温动物正在进化出更大的耳朵、喙和腿，以适应全球变暖。

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1Humans in many parts of the world are having to adjust to climate change, but it appears that animals are having to adapt,too.

2According to a new study,some warm-blooded animals like birds are evolving (进 化) larger ears, beaks (喙) and legs in order to shed extra body heat as the planet gets hotter.

3“It's high time we recognized that animals have to adapt to these changes, but this is occurring over a far shorter timescale than would have occurred through most of evolutionary time,”said co-author Sara Ryding,a bird researcher.

4“Climate change is heaping a whole lot of pressure on them, and while some species will adapt,others will not,”Ryding added.

5According to a biological theory called“Allen's rule”, animals in warmer climates have longer limbs (四肢) than animals that live in cooler climates. As animals in cold regions need to preserve as much heat as possible,they have lower surface-area-to-volume ratios in order to minimise the surface area to lose heat. The reverse is true for animals in warmer climates.Those animals have higher surface-area-to-volume ratios so they can lose excess heat as easily as possible.

6Ryding said that climate change is a complex phenomenon, with many different factors that have been occurring progressively,so it is difficult to pinpoint exactly the cause of the shapeshifting. But these changes have been seen across a wide range of regions, habitats and species,so there is little evidence to connect them except for climate change.

7Shapeshifting has been particularly widely reported in birds. Several species of Australian parrots have shown an increase in beak size of between 4 per cent and 10 per cent since 1871.

8For the next part of the project,the researchers are going to carry out 3D scans of museum specimens from the past 100 years, to better understand which birds are changing size due to climate change.

9“Shapeshifting does not mean that animals are coping with climate change and that all is fine,”said Ryding.“It just means they are evolving to survive it—but we're not sure what the other ecological consequences of these changes are.”

Reading Check

Choose the best answers according to the text

Language Study

Ⅰ.Analyze the difficult sentence in the text

“It's high time we recognized that animals have to adapt to these changes, but this is occurring over a far shorter timescale than would have occurred through most of evolutionary time,”said co-author Sara Ryding,a bird researcher.“现在我们是时候认识到动物必须适应这些气候变化了，但这个进化发生的时间比大多数进化本应耗费的时间短得多。”合著者、鸟类研究员萨拉·吕丁说。

【点石成金】本句是一个主从复合句，引号内为直接引语，作动词said的宾语。It's high time(that)...意为“是……的时候了”；that animals have to adapt to...是宾语从句，作recognized的宾语；but连接前后两个并列分句。

Ⅱ.Memorize some text-centered chunks

adjust to 适应

according to 根据

as...as possible 尽可能

a wide range of 各种各样的；大范围的

carry out 实施；执行；实行

due to 由于

cope with 处理；应对