雅思阅读第036套P1-The Forgotten Forest
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20minutes on Questions 1-13, which are based on Reading Passage1 below.
The Forgotten Forest
Found only in the Deep South ofAmerica, longleaf pine woodlands have dwindled to about 3 percent of theirformer range, but new efforts are under way to restore them.
THE BEAUTY AND THE BIODIVERSITYof the longleaf pine forest are well-kept secrets, even in its native South.Yet it is among the richest ecosystems in North America, rivaling tallgrassprairies and the ancient forests of the Pacific Northwest in the number ofspecies it shelters. And like those two other disappearing wildlife habitats,longleaf is also critically endangered.
In longleaf pine forests, treesgrow widely scattered, creating an open, parklike environment, more like asavanna than a forest. The trees are not so dense as to block the sun. Thisopenness creates a forest floor that is among the most diverse in the world,where plants such as many-flowered grass pinks, trumpet pitcher plants, Venusflytraps, lavender ladies and pineland bog-buttons grow. As many as 50different species of wildflowers, shrubs, grasses and ferns have been catalogedin just a single square meter.
Once, nearly 92 million acresof longleaf forest flourished from Virginia to Texas, the only place in theworld where it is found. By the turn of the 2lst century, however, virtuallyall of it had been logged, paved or farmed into oblivion. Only about 3 percentof the original range still supports longleaf forest, and only about 10,000acres of that is uncut old-growth—the rest is forest that has regrown aftercutting. An estimated 100,000 of those acres are still vanishing every year.However, a quiet movement to reverse this trend is rippling across the region.Governments, private organisations (including NWF) and individualconservationists are looking for ways to protect and preserve the remaininglongleaf and to plant new forests for future generations.
Figuring out how to bring backthe piney woods also will allow biologists to help the plants and animals thatdepend on this habitat. Nearly two-thirds of the declining, threatened orendangered species in the southeastern United States are associated withlongleaf. The outright destruction of longleaf is only part of their story,says Mark Danaher, the biologist for South Carolina's Francis Marion NationalForest. He says the demise of these animals and plants also is tied to a lackof fire, which once swept through the southern forests on a regular basis."Fire is absolutely critical for this ecosystem and for the species thatdepend on it," says Danaher.
Name just about any speciesthat occurs in longleaf and you can find a connection to fire. Bachman'ssparrow is a secretive bird with a beautiful song that echoes across thelongleaf flatwoods. It tucks its nest on the ground beneath clumps of wiregrassand little bluestem in the open under-story. But once fire has been absent forseveral years, and a tangle of shrubs starts to grow, the sparrows disappear.Gopher tortoises, the only native land tortoises east of the Mississippi, arealso abundant in longleaf. A keystone species for these forests, its burrowsprovide homes and safety to more than 300 species of vertebrates andinvertebrates ranging from eastern diamond-back rattlesnakes to gopher frogs.If fire is suppressed, however, the tortoises are choked out. "If we losefire," says Bob Mitchell, an ecologist at the Jones Center, "we losewildlife."
Without fire, we also loselongleaf. Fire knocks back the oaks and other hardwoods that can grow up tooverwhelm longleaf forests. "They are fire forests," Mitchell says."They evolved in the lightning capital of the eastern United States."And it wasn't only lightning strikes that set the forest aflame. "NativeAmericans also lit fires to keep the forest open," Mitchell says. "Sodid the early pioneers. They helped create the longleaf pine forests that weknow today."
Fire also changes how nutrientsflow throughout longleaf ecosystems, in ways we are just beginning tounderstand. For example, researchers have discovered that frequent firesprovide extra calcium, which is critical for egg production, to endangeredred-cockaded woodpeckers. Frances James, a retired avian ecologist from FloridaState University, has studied these small black-and-white birds for more thantwo decades in Florida's sprawling Apalachicola National Forest. When sherealised female woodpeckers laid larger clutches in the first breeding seasonafter their territories were burned, she and her colleagues went searching foranswers. "We learned calcium is stashed away in woody shrubs when theforest is not burned," James says. "But when there is a fire, a pulseof calcium moves down into the soil and up into the longleaf." Eventually,this calcium makes its way up the food chain to a tree-dwelling species of ant,which is the red-cockaded's favorite food. The result: more calcium for thebirds, which leads to more eggs, more young and more woodpeckers.
Today, fire is used as a vitalmanagement tool for preserving both longleaf and its wildlife. Most of thesefires are prescribed burns, deliberately set with a drip torch. Although thepublic often opposes any type of fire—and the smoke that goes with it—thesefrequent, low-intensity burns reduce the risk of catastrophic conflagrations."Forests are going to burn," says Amadou Diop, NWF's southern forestsrestoration manager. "It's just a question of when. With prescribed burns,we can pick the time and the place."
Diop is spearheading a new NWFeffort to restore longleaf. "It's a species we need to go back to,"he says. Educating landowners about the advantages of growing longleaf is partof the program, he adds, which will soon be under way in nine southern states. "Rightnow, most longleaf is on public land," says Jerry McCollum, president ofthe Georgia Wildlife Federation. "Private land is where we need towork," he adds, pointing out that more than 90 percent of the acreagewithin the historic range of longleaf falls under this category.
Interest among privatelandowners is growing throughout the South, but restoring longleaf is not aneasy task. The herbaceous layer—the understory of wiregrasses and other plants- also needs to be re-created. In areas where the land has not been chewed upby farming, but converted to loblolly or slash pine plantations, the seed bankof the longleaf forest usually remains viable beneath the soil. In time, thisoriginal vegetation can be coaxed back. Where agriculture has destroyed theseeds, however, wiregrass must be replanted. Right now, the expense ispro-hibitive, but researchers are searching for low-cost solutions.
Bringing back longleaf is notfor the short-sighted, however. Few of us will be alive when the pines beingplanted today become mature forests in 70 to 80 years. But that is not stoppinglongleaf enthusiasts. "Today, it's getting hard to find longleaf seedlingsto buy," one of the private landowners says. "Everyone wants them.Longleaf is in a resurgence."
SECTION 1: QUESTIONS 1-13
Questions 1-5
Complete the notes below.
Choose NO MORE THAN TWOWORDS from the passage for each answer.
Write your answers inboxes 1-5 on your answer sheet.
Forest fire ensures that:
· Birds can locate their 1 _________________ in the ground.
· The burrows of a species of 2 _________________ provide homes to many other animals.
· Hardwoods such as 3 _________________ can grow and outnumber long-leaf trees.
Apart from fires lit by lightning:
· Fires are created by 4 _________________ and settlers.
· Fires deliberately lit are called 5 _________________
Questions 6-9
Complete the flow-chart below.
Choose ONE WORD ONLY fromthe passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 6-9 onyour answer sheet.
How to increase the number of cockaded woodpeckers
Calcium stored in 6 _________________
ↆ
Shrubs are burned
ↆ
Calcium released into 7 _________________ and travels up to the leaves
ↆ
a kind of 8 _________________ eats the leaves
ↆ
Red-cockaded woodpeckers eat those ants
ↆ
The number of 9 _________________ increases
ↆ
More cockaded woodpeckers
Questions 10-13
Do the following statementsagree with the information given in Reading Passage 1?
In boxes 10-13 onyour answer sheet, write
TRUE
if the statement agrees with the information
FALSE
if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN
If there is no information on this
10 _________________ Thesparse distribution of longleaf pine trees leads to the most diversityof species.
11 _________________ It iseasier to restore forests converted to farms than forests converted toplantations.
12 _________________ Thecost to restore forest is increasing recently.
13 _________________ Fewcan live to see the replanted forest reach its maturity.
答案
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