科学60秒:热带雨林坍塌，爬行动物激增
来源：沪江听写酷
2011-06-18 10:00
The November 26th issue of the journal Science included a study showing that the extinction of the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago allowed ____1____ mammals to get really big. But well before all that happened, another event triggered a different burst of evolutionary activity.
A new study finds that about 300 million years ago, the tropical rainforests along the equator fell apart. The familiar ____2____—global warming.
Present-day Europe and North America were on the equator back then, and were covered with rainforests. But global warming made things even hotter and drier.
The ____3____ rainforests broke up into smaller fragments, and reptile populations became ____4____ from each other in the fragments. Such geographical isolation allows different populations to evolve in different directions, which led to a great increase in reptile diversity. The research appears in the journal Geology.
The explosion in reptiles ultimately led to the evolution of the dinosaurs, which dominated the planet until they ____5____ the massive impact that allowed us mammals to take over. As Vonnegut would say, so it goes.
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
A new study finds that about 300 million years ago, the tropical rainforests along the equator fell apart. The familiar ____2____—global warming.
Present-day Europe and North America were on the equator back then, and were covered with rainforests. But global warming made things even hotter and drier.
The ____3____ rainforests broke up into smaller fragments, and reptile populations became ____4____ from each other in the fragments. Such geographical isolation allows different populations to evolve in different directions, which led to a great increase in reptile diversity. The research appears in the journal Geology.
The explosion in reptiles ultimately led to the evolution of the dinosaurs, which dominated the planet until they ____5____ the massive impact that allowed us mammals to take over. As Vonnegut would say, so it goes.
【视听版科学小组荣誉出品】
puny
culprit
expansive
isolated
fell victim to
11月26日发布的《自然》杂志里有一项研究表明，6千5百万年前恐龙的灭绝让弱小的哺乳类动物变得强大起来。但是在恐龙灭绝之前，另一件事件引起了大规模的生物进化。一项新研究发现，大约在3亿年前，赤道沿线的热带雨林坍塌了，罪魁祸首就是大家都熟悉的全球变暖。现在的欧洲和北美在当时位于赤道，被热带雨林覆盖着。但全球变暖让当地变得干热起来。一大片热带雨林瓦解成零碎的部分，零碎的雨林带将爬行动物和其他物种隔离了起来。这种地理阻隔让不同种群向不同方向进化，让爬行动物种类大幅增加。这项研究刊登在《地质学杂志》上。爬行动物的激增最终导致了恐龙的进化，恐龙一直是这个星球的支配者，直到后来它们成为某次巨大的冲击牺牲品，我们哺乳类动物才大权在握。正如冯内古特说的，事情就是这样。