首页
登录
职称英语
We’ve Been Imagining Mountains All Wrong, Say Scientists A)From the simp
We’ve Been Imagining Mountains All Wrong, Say Scientists A)From the simp
游客
2023-06-29
31
管理
问题
We’ve Been Imagining Mountains All Wrong, Say Scientists
A)From the simplest sketches to the most advanced scientific models, illustrations of mountains pretty much all look the same. Their classic pyramid form, wider at the bottom and narrowing all the way up to the top, has been ingrained in the human mind, and scientists have always assumed that the land area in mountain ranges decreases the higher you climb. Until now, that is.
B)New research published Monday in Nature Climate Change reveals a surprising discovery that not only changes the way we think about mountains but could also have big implications for how we understand, monitor and protect the organisms that call them home. It turns out mountain ranges don’t just come in the familiar pyramid form—in fact, most of them have a different shape entirely.
C)Researchers Morgan Tingley and Paul Elsen used satellite data on mountain ranges from around the globe to analyze how the amount of the land area changed with increasing elevation(海拔). They learned that pyramidal mountain ranges account for just 32 percent of the mountain ranges on Earth. Of the remaining mountain ranges, six percent have an inverse, or upside-down, pyramid form, with the land area increasing toward the top; 23 percent have an hourglass(沙漏)shape, being wider and at the bottom and top and pinched(挤压)in the middle; and 39 percent have a diamond form, with less land areas at the top and bottom and more available in the middle.
D)"I did expect that we’d see some patterns that were not this classic pyramid," says Elsen, lead author and PhD student in Princeton University’s ecology and evolutionary biology department. In fact, Elsen got interested in conducting the study while doing field research in the Himalayas. He noticed that as he hiked to the tops of the mountains, the land area seemed to increase, rather than decrease, at high elevations. Still, he says, "I had no idea that pyramid mountains would be the exception to the rule."
E)It’s hard to tell the true form of a mountain range just by looking at any given mountain peak, since most individual mountains still come to a point at the very top. But mountain ranges are so big, and their topography(地形)so complex, that it would be impossible to observe their true shapes just by looking at them. That’s why the researchers had to analyze satellite data, looking at the total surface area in relation to elevation across the whole mountain range, to complete their study. The way the land area is distributed on a landscape scale—whether the greatest area lies at the top, bottom or in the middle when you take into account all the slopes, ravines and plateaus that make up the mountains—is what determines a mountain range’s designation as a pyramid, inverse pyramid, diamond or hourglass.
F)The finding doesn’t just flip our view of mountain topography. More importantly, it changes our understanding of how climate change can affect mountain-dwelling species, the authors say. Organisms that live on mountains are in a particular pickle when it comes to climate change. These species tend to be highly specialized and do best in particular habitats and narrow temperature ranges. As global temperatures rise, the best way to find cooler spots is to move higher up on the mountain. But in pyramidal mountain ranges, which get narrower toward the top, moving higher also means losing the land area. Having less available space can cause populations to shrink and can put them at an increased risk of dying out entirely.
G)But Elsen and Tingley’s research shows that the pyramid model doesn’t hold true for all, or even most mountain ranges, meaning space shortages might not always fall where scientists think they do. In hourglass mountains, for example, the most constricted(狭窄的)space will be in the middle of the mountain, rather than at the top. On the other hand, species on diamond mountains will see the widest spaces in the middle. And species on inverse pyramids will enjoy increasing land areas all the way up to the top of the mountain.
H)"I think this is critical information that will really inform our understanding of mountain species," says Robert Guralnick, a biodiversity scientist and curator(馆长)at the University of Florida’s natural history museum, who was not involved with the study. "The models we’ve been using are typically that mountain ranges are narrowing toward the top. " More realistic models and a better understanding of mountain topography can help conservationists make better decisions when monitoring and managing mountain species, the paper’s authors say. "This is absolutely an important study for informing our conservation policy," Elsen says. Knowing where the land area is likely to be scarce can help conservationists target the right places and the right species.
I)In some cases, new knowledge could even indicate that climate change doesn’t threaten a species in quite the way scientists thought. The Himalayan monal, for example, is a colorful bird that lives in the Himalayan mountains, which have the hourglass form. Currently, the bird prefers an elevation that’s right in the middle of the hourglass, says Morgan Tingley, senior author and assistant professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Connecticut. So space may be pinched for it now, but if warming temperatures force the bird into higher elevations, it will likely enjoy more space as it moves upward.
J)On the other hand, a bright little bird called the beautiful nuthatch—which is already classified as a vulnerable species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature—lives just below the pinched part of the hourglass. If it were to flee to higher ground, it would lose the land area. "This current research is showing that there are potentially optimistic futures for some species, and it’s also highlighting these bottleneck zones," Elsen says.
K)The research is also relevant for species that move downslope in response to climate change, chasing the increased precipitation that comes with warmer temperatures. Before now, most scientists might have assumed that any species moving downhill would be able to take advantage of greater and greater land areas as it moved along. Now we know that in certain mountain ranges, these species may actually encounter a shortage in space as they move toward the base of the mountain, and their populations may shrink as a result. [br] The Himalayas have got wider land areas at higher elevations.
选项
答案
D
解析
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/2794343.html
相关试题推荐
[originaltext]Climatechangeismakingitharderthanusualforscientists
[originaltext]AccordingtonewresearchbyBritishscientists,teenswhodo
[originaltext]AccordingtonewresearchbyBritishscientists,teenswhodo
Hollywoodhasamessageforscientists:Ifyouwantsomethingthat’s100%ac
Hollywoodhasamessageforscientists:Ifyouwantsomethingthat’s100%ac
Hollywoodhasamessageforscientists:Ifyouwantsomethingthat’s100%ac
[originaltext]AccordingtonewresearchbyBritishscientists,teenswhodo
[originaltext]AccordingtonewresearchbyBritishscientists,teenswhodo
[originaltext]Climatechangeismakingitharderthanusualforscientists
[originaltext]Climatechangeismakingitharderthanusualforscientists
随机试题
Itis(possible)______tofinishthedifficulttaskinsuchashortperiodofti
Eyecontactisimportantbecausewrongcontactmaycreateacommunication______
我国最大的天然林区是()。A.西南林区 B.东南林区 C.三北防护林 D.
可用于解救有机磷中毒时患者出现的症状如瞳孔缩小、腹痛、腹泻、呼吸困难、心动过缓等
阻波器设备构支架有飘逸物或鸟巢,有可能影响设备运行定性为严重缺陷。
进入新世纪以来,我国经济总量在世界的位次不断提升。1978年,我国GDP只有14
暂时解决欧洲安全问题的条约是( )A.《凡尔赛和约》 B.《洛桑条约》 C
综合应急预案总则中包括信息报告程序,其中明确24小时应急值守电话、事故信息接收、
女,50岁,因患短肠综合征,予全胃肠外营养(TPN)治疗。应用一周时病人出现昏迷
现行税法规定,建筑安装工程费用的增值税是指应计入建筑安装工程造价内的( )。A.
最新回复
(
0
)