【托福听力备考】TPO14听力文本——Lecture 2.doc

【托福听力备考】TPO14听力文本——Lecture 2

众所周知，托福TPO材料是备考托福听力最好的材料。相信众多备考托福的同学也一直在练习这套材料，那么在以下内容中我们就为大家带来托福TPO听力练习的文本，希望能为大家的备考带来帮助。

TPO 14 Lecture 2 Biology

Narrator:Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.

Professor:

Almost all animals have some way of regulating their body temperature;

otherwise they wouldn’t survive extreme hot or cold conditions---sweating,

panting, swimming to cooler or warmer water; ducking into somewhere cool like a

burrow or a hole under a rock; these are just a few. And that spot is colder or

warmer than the surrounding environment, because it’s a microclimate.

A microclimate is a group of climate conditions that affect a localized area,

weather features like temperature, wind, moisture and so on. And when I say

localized, I mean really localized, because microclimates can be, as the name

suggests, pretty small, even less than a square meter. And microclimates are

affected by huge number of other variables. Obviously weather conditions in the

surrounding area are a factor. But other aspects of the location like, um… the

elevation of the land, the plant life nearby, and so on, have a substantial

effect on microclimates. And of course the human development in the area, um, a

road will affect a nearby microclimate. It’s also interesting to note that

microclimates that are near each other can have very different conditions. In

the forest for example, there can be a number of very different microclimates

close to each other, because of all the variables I just mentioned.

Student: So how does a hole in the ground, a burrow, stay cool in a hot

climate?

Professor:Well, since cold air sinks, and these spots are shaded, they are

usually much cooler than the surrounding area. And these spots are so important

because many animals rely on microclimates to regulate their body temperature.

Um, for instance, there is a species of squirrel, in the Western part of the

United States that can get really hot when they are out foraging for food. So

they need a way to cool down. So what do they do? They go back to their own

burrow. Once they get there, their body temperatures decrease very, very

quickly. The trip to the burrow prevents the squirrel from getting too hot.

Student: But squirrels are mammals, right? I thought mammals regulated their

temperature internally.

Professor: Mammals do have the ability to regulate their body temperature,

but not all can do it to the same degree, or even the same way. Like when you

walk outside on a hot day, you perspire, and your body cools itself down, a

classic example of how a mammal regulates its own body temperature. But one

challenge that squirrels face, well many small mammals do, is that because of

their size, sweating would make them lose too much moisture. They dehydrate. But

on the other hand, their small size allows them to fit into very tiny spaces. So

for small mammals, microclimates can make a big difference. They rely on

microclimates for survival.

Student: So cold-blooded animals, like reptiles, they can’t control their own

body temperature, so I can imagine the effect a microclimate would have on

them.

Professor:

Yes, many reptiles and insects rely on microclimates to control their body

temperature. A lot of reptiles use burrows or stay under rocks to cool down. Of

course with reptiles, it’s a balancing act. Staying in the heat for too long can

lead to problems, but staying in the cold can do the same. So reptiles have to

be really precise about where they spend their time, even how they position

their bodies. And when I say they’re precise, I mean it--- some snakes will

search out a place under rocks of a specific thickness, because too thin a rock

doesn’t keep them cool enough, and too thick a rock will cause them to get too

cold. That level of precision is critical to the snake for maintaining its body

temperature.

And even microscopic organisms rely on microclimates for survival. Think

about this, decomposing leaves create heat that warms the soil; the warm soil in

turn affects the growth, the conditions of organisms there. And those organisms

then affect the rate of decomposition of the leaves. So a microclimate can be

something so small and so easily disturbed that even a tiny change can have a

big impact. If someone on a hike knocks a couple of rocks over, they could be

unwittingly destroying a microclimate that an animal or organism relies on.