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备战2021年高考英语考前时事热点话题阅读
热点33 海洋生物的特征及其保护
一、阅读理解
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“The main surprise is how widespread the effects were,” says senior author Martin Genner, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Bristol. “We found the same trend across all groups of marine life we looked at, from small forms of plants and animals to marine invertebrates (无脊椎动物), and from fish to seabirds.”
The new study builds on early evidence of the impact of climate changes on the distribution, diversity and seasonality of marine species. Based on those findings, Genner’s team reasoned that marine species should be doing well at the leading (pole-ward) edge of their ranges but poorly at their trailing (equator-ward) side. They also realized that existing global species distribution databases could be used to test this idea.
Based on a thorough search of available data in the literature, the researchers now report on a global analysis of diversity trends for 304 widely distributed marine species over the last century. The results show that — just as predicted — diversity increases have been most obvious where sampling has taken place at the pole-ward side of species ranges, while diversity declines have been greatest where sampling has taken place at the equator-ward side of species ranges.
The findings show that large-scale changes in the diversity of species are well underway. They also suggest that marine species haven’t managed to adapt to warmer conditions. The researchers therefore suggest that projected sea temperature increases of up to 1.5°C over pre-industrial levels by 2050 will continue to lead to shifts in the diversity of marine species, including those of importance for coastal livelihoods.
“This matters because it means that climate changes are not only leading to diversity changes, but naturally affecting the performance of species locally,” Genner says. “We’re seeing fewer and fewer species like emperor penguins as water becomes too warm at their equator-ward edge, and we see some fish s