01【生态环保、自然灾害类】阅读理解10篇-高考英语快速提⾼阅读能⼒之⾼频主题词块速记

【生态环保、自然灾害类】话题阅读练习（一） （阅读理解10篇） Passage 1 Earth is in the middle of an insect crisis, with thousands of species declining over the past several decades. Scientists have often blamed this on habitat loss or pesticide （杀虫剂）use. But a new study of butterflies in the western United States has found that warmer fall weather may be an equal, if not more, of a factor. Over the past four decades, more than 450 butterfly species have declined at an average rate of nearly 2 percent a year, according to a study published in Science. It’s already known that the western monarch butterfly has plummeted in population by 99.9 percent and was recently denied protection by Endangered Species Act in the U. S. But the study revealed lesser-known species, like the Boisduval’s blue and California’s state insect, the California dogface butterfly, are heading toward extinction. "The influence of climate change is driving those declines, which makes sense because they’re so widespread," says study leader Mathew Forister. To reach their troubling findings, the researchers combined databases of the butterfly count conducted by scientists and amateur insect enthusiasts at 72 locations in the western U. S. To focus on the contribution of climate change, the researchers made sure to include locations that were relatively undisturbed by agriculture and human development to limit the influence of other threats to butterflies such as habitat loss and pesticides. More than 200 cities across the U.S. are experiencing warmer fall seasons. In Arizona, for instance, fall temperatures have risen by 0. 2 degree Fahrenheit every decade since 1895. As for why warming falls are so harmful, it may be connected to butterflies’ hibernation-like diapause (滞育）in the fall. Warmer temperatures could be forcing the insects, most of which live around a year, to stay awake longer and starve. In other words, they’re "getting old and fragile and dying sooner". Given that butterflies are key pollinat