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  3. Marine Life If the Census, Bureau thinks it has its hands full counting Americans, imagine what scientists are up against in

Marine Life If the Census, Bureau thinks it has its hands full counting Americans, imagine what scientists are up against in

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问题                             Marine Life
    If the Census, Bureau thinks it has its hands full counting Americans, imagine what scientists are up against in trying to tally every living thing in the ocean, including microbes so small they seem invisible.
    The worldwide Census of Marine Life has four field projects focusing on hard-to-see sea life such as tiny microbes and zooplankton in the sea bed. Tiny as individuals, these life forms are massive as groups and provide food that helps underpin better-known living things.
    "Scientists are discovering and describing an astonishing new world of marine microbial diversity and abundance, distribution patterns and seasonal changes," said Mitch Sogin of the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Mass. , leader of the International Census of Marine Life. The Census of Marine Life, which is scheduled to be reported Oct. 4 in London, has involved more than 2,000 scientists from more than 80 nations. The decade-long census has discovered more than 5,000 new forms of marine life. Researchers think there may be several times that many yet to be found.
    Previous updates have focused on larger creatures, such as an Antarctic expressway where octopuses ride along in a flow of extra salty water, the deepest comb jellyfish ever found and The White Shark Cafe, a deep Pacific Ocean site where sharks congregate in winter.
    Now the researchers have turned to the tiniest of things, some of which burrow in the sea floor. Remotely operated deep-sea vehicles discovered that roundworms dominate the deepest, darkest abyss. Sometimes, more than 500,000 can exist in just over a square yard of soft clay. Only a few different types have been studied. There are also 16, 000 or more species of seaworms. There are loriciferans, which the scientists call "girdle wearers" because of hind shells resembling a corset. And there are hundreds of types of tiny crustaceans.
    "Such findings make us look at the deep sea from a new perspective," says researcher Pedro Martinez Arbizu of the German Center for Marine Biodiversity Research. "Far from being a lifeless desert, the deep sea rivals such highly diverse ecosystems as tropical rainforests and coral reefs."
What is said about smaller marine life?
选项 A、It is impossible to count its number owing to its invisibility.
B、It is found that all smaller marine life live in the sea bed.
C、Some smaller marine life are tiny while others are massive.
D、Some familiar creatures depend on smaller marine life for food supply.
答案D
解析 根据题干关键词smaller marine life定位到文章第2段第2句：Tiny as individuals，theselife forms are massive as groups and provide food that helps underpin better—known livingthings．可知，较小形体的海洋生物为我们所熟知的生物提供了食物。
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