2013汕头二模英语试题阅读理解4篇文章原文及译文2013汕头二模英语试题阅读理解4篇文章原文及译文.doc

汕头市2013年普通高中高三教学质量测评试题（二）英语 阅读理解原文4篇及中文译文 A Green invaders are taking over America. Nope, not invaders from space. Plants. You might not think of plants as dangerous, but in this case they are threatening natures delicate food web. The invaders are plants from other countries brought here to make gardens and yards look pretty. Ever since people started to arrive on Americas shores, theyve carried along trees, flowers, and vegetables from other places. Now there are so many of those plants, they are crowding out the native plants that have lived here since before human settlers arrived. And thats a problem, says Dr. Doug Tallamy. Hes an entomologist (an insect expert) at the University of Delaware. He explains that almost all the plant-eating insects in the United States—90% of them—are specialized. That means they eat only certain plants. Pretty orange and black monarch butterflies, for example, can only dine on one plant: milkweed. If people cut down milkweed and replace it with something else, the butterflies starve, because their bodies cannot accept any other food. But the trouble doesnt stop there, it goes right across the food web. When insects cant get the right plants to eat and they die off, then the birds dont have enough bugs for their meals. Tallamy points out that almost all migrating birds depend on insects to feed their young. We cannot let the plants and animals around us disappear, says Tallamy. The way to preserve them is to give them food to eat. But when we plant non-native plants, we are clobbering the food web, because then we dont have the insects the birds need to live. Fewer of the right plants mean fewer bugs, and fewer bugs mean fewer birds. And thats bad for the Earth, because we need a variety of living things to keep the planet healthy and beautiful. The good news is, gardeners everywhere are working hard to protect native plants and get rid of the invaders. Many local garden centers sell native plants. Just Google