Warmer Climate Will Bake Tropical Bugs Global warming could cook tropical insects, with unpredictable knock-on effects, say

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问题                 Warmer Climate Will Bake Tropical Bugs
    Global warming could cook tropical insects, with unpredictable knock-on effects, say researchers who warn that rising temperatures also【C1】______tropical frogs,lizards(蜥蜴).
    Temperatures are【C2】______to increase much faster in temperate(温和的)and polar(极地的)regions than in the tropics. But no one had looked at how warming would affect insects and other cold-blooded animals【C3】______had evolved in tropical regions with little temperature variation.
    Curtis Deutsch at the University of California at Los Angeles and colleagues analysed data 【C4】______insect survival and reproduction for 38 species in different ecosystems(生态系统), and then estimated how these values would【C5】______with predictions of climate change for the 21st century.
    The team found that the reproductive【C6】______of tropical insects tends to peak very close to the temperatures where they normally live, but【C7】______sharply at higher temperatures. This means that cranking up(提高)the heat only a small amount can exert a heavy toll, leaving insects unable tore produce【C8】______enough to keep up their numbers.
    Temperate insects reproduce well over a broader range, and do not live as【C9】______to their thermal(热的)limit, so they can reproduce successfully when their climate warms more than in the tropics.
    " Tropical insects do very well in a narrow band of temperatures, but move them above that 【C10】______and they die," says team member Josh Tewksbury of the University of Washington in Seattle.
    The heart of the【C11】______is temperature tolerance. Temperate-zone insects have evolved to survive the much broader temperature swings of seasonal climates than have their tropical relatives.
    The【C12】______appears worse for animals that live in hot stable climate of the lower levels of tropical forests. Lizards in clear areas can find shade to cool down, but those living in the forest are already in the【C13】______, and there’ s not much they can do to get cooler, Deutsch says.
    Too few tropical insects have been studied so far to【C14】______if any particular group will be particularly hard-hit, says Tewksbury. Insects play important【C15】______in forest ecology(生态学).
    The team are now starting to evaluate how temperature affects ecological interactions of insects with other species, including crops such as African com.
【C12】

选项 A、reason
B、cause
C、level
D、effect

答案D

解析 句意:对于栖息在气温稳定、炎热的热带森林的较低生态层中的昆虫,其影响更糟糕。根据文章可知,整个研究过程就是为了解决气温升高对昆虫所造成的威胁问题。上文已经说明气候变暖对温带、热带昆虫的影响,所以此空格说的应该也是影响“effect”,故选D。reason意为“理由”;cause意为“原因”;level意为“层次,水平”,均排除。
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