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  3. During the last decade, Val Beasley of the University of Illinois College has led a team wanting to know why the world’s amphibi

During the last decade, Val Beasley of the University of Illinois College has led a team wanting to know why the world’s amphibi

admin2012-06-10  56
问题     During the last decade, Val Beasley of the University of Illinois College has led a team wanting to know why the world’s amphibian(两栖动物) populations have been decreasing or riddled with deformed limbs.
    Evidence from his and other teams points to increasing numbers of common parasites as an important cause. However, the problems facing amphibian habitats really pose a distressing example of ecosystems out of balance because of human activity, according to Beasley, a professor of biosciences and executive director of Wildlife and Ecosystem Health. Beasley’s main collaborators, postdoctoral researcher Anna M. Schotthoefer and Rebecca A. Cole, a scientist with the National Wildlife Health Center in Madison, Wis. , say they agree.
    A series of their research projects -— two published in 2003 and another that will appear as a book chapter this year — dramatically refine the data on parasitic activity and argue that physically and chemically induced changes of aquatic habitats are taking a toll.
    "We have to be asking what human activities are contributing to imbalances in these ecosystems to set the stage for more severe infections, " Beasley said. "It’s becoming a serious question of how we can better manage landscapes, streams, wetlands, ponds and lakes. Frogs are among the first animals that young children see in a healthy wild place, but they are not finding them in the same numbers as in past years. "
    Tadpoles (蝌蚪) of many species feed on algae converting the material into the protein, fat and other nutrients that are needed by other creatures higher in the food chain, Beasley said. Amphibians are clearly important players in ecosystem functioning, he added. "The frogs that develop from tadpoles subsequently eat up thousands of insects," he said, "The frogs themselves are also important prey for reptiles, birds and mammals."
    In the study funded by Chicago Zoological Society, Beasley’s team noted that Midwest landowners hollow out their ponds so that deep water prevents the establishment of aquatic plants.
Such a practice allows for easier boating, swimming and fishing, but by eliminating aquatic plants, the habitat becomes structurally barren. Herbicide use also aggravates the problem and produces chemical changes. Plant-derived oxygen is reduced, and herbicides also may have direct toxic effects on tadpoles and other animals, Beasley said. The lack of vegetation may expose tadpoles to more parasites coming from the infected snails, because the tadpoles can’t hide or use the vegetation to brush off the parasites, Schotthoefer said.
    So while the parasites seem to contribute to declines and deformation in frog populations,the challenge is to find management approaches that put balance back into amphibian ecosystems, Beasley said.
One example of physically induced changes of aquatic habitats is
选项 A、easier boating.
B、more fishing.
C、herbicide use.
D、lack of aquatic plants.
答案D
解析 第三段指出影响两栖动物生存的一个重要因素；物理因素和化学因素诱发了水中栖息地的变化。第六段和第七段则是对诱发的变化进行的具体阐释：土地所有者挖掘池塘，阻止了水生植物的生长，由于除去了水生植物，栖息地在结构上变得单调贫乏；除草剂的使用使这一问题更加恶化并引起了化学变化。可见，由物理因素引起水生栖息地的变化是水生植物的缺失，故[D]为答案。
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