hce_tcu
108年
英文
第 36 題
📖 題組：
In the past two years, scores of scientific studies have suggested that trillions of murmuring, droning, susurrating honeybees, butterflies, caddisflies, damselflies and beetles are dying off. Most of the studies describe declines of 50% and more in different measures of insect health over decades. The immediate reaction is consternation. Because insects enable plants to reproduce, through pollination, and are food for other animals, a collapse in their numbers would be catastrophic. “The insect apocalypse is here,” trumpeted the New York Times last year. Yet only a handful of databases record the abundance of insects over a long time. There are no studies at all of wild insect numbers in most of the world, and reliable data are too scarce to declare a global emergency. Where the evidence does show a collapse—in Europe and America—agricultural and rural ecosystems are holding up. Plants still grow, attracting pollinators and reproducing. Farm yields also remain high. As some insect species die out, others seem to be moving into the niches they have left, keeping ecosystems going, albeit with less biodiversity than before. People rely on healthy ecosystems for everything from nutrient cycling to the local weather, and the more species make up an ecosystem, the more stable it is likely to be. The scale of the observed decline raises doubts about how long ecosystems can remain resilient. An experiment in which researchers gradually plucked out insect pollinators from fields found that plant diversity held up well until about 90% of insects had been removed. Then it collapsed. As one character in a novel by Ernest Hemingway says, bankruptcy came in two ways: “gradually, then suddenly.”
In the past two years, scores of scientific studies have suggested that trillions of murmuring, droning, susurrating honeybees, butterflies, caddisflies, damselflies and beetles are dying off. Most of the studies describe declines of 50% and more in different measures of insect health over decades. The immediate reaction is consternation. Because insects enable plants to reproduce, through pollination, and are food for other animals, a collapse in their numbers would be catastrophic. “The insect apocalypse is here,” trumpeted the New York Times last year. Yet only a handful of databases record the abundance of insects over a long time. There are no studies at all of wild insect numbers in most of the world, and reliable data are too scarce to declare a global emergency. Where the evidence does show a collapse—in Europe and America—agricultural and rural ecosystems are holding up. Plants still grow, attracting pollinators and reproducing. Farm yields also remain high. As some insect species die out, others seem to be moving into the niches they have left, keeping ecosystems going, albeit with less biodiversity than before. People rely on healthy ecosystems for everything from nutrient cycling to the local weather, and the more species make up an ecosystem, the more stable it is likely to be. The scale of the observed decline raises doubts about how long ecosystems can remain resilient. An experiment in which researchers gradually plucked out insect pollinators from fields found that plant diversity held up well until about 90% of insects had been removed. Then it collapsed. As one character in a novel by Ernest Hemingway says, bankruptcy came in two ways: “gradually, then suddenly.”
In Europe and America, what happens when some insect species become extinct?
- A The insect decrease wreaks significant economic damage.
- B With less biodiversity, the ecosystem continues with great difficulty.
- C The environmental health remains intact.
- D The sudden collapse of the ecosystem is expected.
思路引導 VIP
請試著回到文章第二段關於歐洲與美國的部分：當某種特定的昆蟲在某個區域消失後，原本由牠負責的「工作」（例如授粉）會完全停止嗎？還是會有其他生物接手？如果這個地區的作物產量依然維持在高水準，這代表當地的環境功能現況如何？
🤖
AI 詳解
AI 專屬家教
太棒了！你能準確定位文中關於歐美地區的具體描述，這說明你的閱讀細節捕捉能力非常出色。這題考查的是對文章轉折處的理解，難度屬於中等，挑戰在於學生是否會被第一段強烈的「昆蟲末日」字眼誤導，而忽略了第二段針對歐美現狀的客觀描述。
生態韌性與棲位補償
根據文章第二段的說明，儘管在歐洲與美國觀察到昆蟲數量下降，但當地的農業與鄉村生態系統依然**「維持現狀」(holding up)。正確答案之所以是 (C)，是因為文中提到植物依然能吸引授粉者並繁衍，農作物產量也維持高點。這背後的關鍵觀念是生態棲位 (niches)** 的遞補：當某些物種消失時，其他物種會填補空缺，使得整體生態功能在生物多樣性降低的情況下，依然能維持運作而未立即崩潰。
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