Complete the sentences below:

1. Ecology is the study of … of plants and animals to their physical and biological environment.

2. … includes light and heat or solar radiation, moisture, wind, oxygen, carbon dioxide, nutrients in soil, water, and atmosphere.

3. Because of … required to study organisms in their environment, ecology draws upon many fields.

4. Ecology is confused with … programs and … science.

5. The term ecology … by the German biologist Ernst Heinrich Haeckel in 1866.

 

Match English and Russian equivalents:

    relationship; ecology; environment; environmental; oxygen; nutrients; moisture; contribution; misused; adaptation; selection; confuse; evolution.

 

    неверно употреблённый; кислород; экология; эволюция; путать; питательные вещества; вклад; адаптация; отбор; взаимоотношения; окружающая среда; влага; относящийся к окружающей среде.

 

Give annotation of the text. Use the following:

1. The article (paper, book) deals with… - эта статья (работа, книга) касается…

2. As the title implies the article describes… - согласно названию в статье описывается…

3. It is specially noted… - особенно отмечается

4. A mention should be made… - упоминается

5. It is spoken in detail… - подробно описывается

6. … are noted. - упоминаются

7. It is reported… - сообщается

8. The text gives a valuable information on… текст даёт ценную информацию…

9. Much attention is given to… - большое внимание уделяется…

10. The article is of great help to… - эта статья окажет большую помощь…

11. The article is of interest to… - эта статья представляет интерес для…

12. It (the article) gives a detailed analysis of… - она (статья) даёт подробный анализ…

13. It draws our attention to… она (статья, работа) привлекает наше внимание…

14. It should be stressed (emphasized) that… - следует подчеркнуть, что

15. … is (are) proposed (examined, discussed). – предлагается (рассматривается, обсуждается).

16. An option permits… - выбор позволяет.

17. etc. – и т.д.

 

Endangered Species

Endangered Species are plant and animal species that are in immediate danger of extinction. The following degrees of endangerment have been defined. Critically endangered species, such as the California condor, are those that probably cannot survive without direct human intervention. Threatened species, such as the grey wolf, are abundant in parts of their range but are declining in total numbers. Rare species, such as the greater prairie chicken, exist in relatively low numbers over their ranges but are not necessarily in immediate danger of extinction.

Extinction is actually a normal process in the course of evolution. Throughout geological time, many more species have become extinct than exist today. These species slowly disappeared because of climatic changes and the inability to adapt to such conditions as competition and predation. Since the 1600s, however, the process of extinction has accelerated rapidly through the impact of both human population growth and technological advances on natural ecosystems. Today the majority of the world's environments are changing faster than the ability of most species to adapt to such changes through natural selection.

Causes

Species become extinct or endangered for a number of reasons, but the primary cause is the destruction of habitat. Drainage of wetlands, conversion of shrub lands to grazing lands, cutting and clearing of forests (especially in the Tropics, where the rain forests will be gone soon if destruction continues at its present rate), urbanisation and suburbanisation, and highway and dam construction have seriously reduced available habitats. As the various habitats become fragmented into “islands,” the remaining animal populations crowd into smaller areas, causing further habitat destruction. Species in these small islands lose contact with other populations of their own kind, thereby reducing their genetic variation and making them less adaptable to environmental change. These small populations are highly vulnerable to extinction; for some species, the fragmented habitats become too small to support a viable population.

Since the 1600s, commercial exploitation of animals for food and other products has caused many species to become extinct or endangered. The slaughter of great whales for oil and meat, for example, has brought them to the brink of extinction; the African rhinoceros, killed for its horn, is also critically endangered. The great auk became extinct in the 19th century because of overhunting, and the Carolina parakeet perished as a species because of a combination of overhunting and habitat destruction.

Introduced diseases, parasites, and predators against which native flora and fauna have no defenses have also exterminated or greatly reduced some species. The accidental introduction of a blight, for example, eliminated the chestnut tree from North American hardwood forests. Predator and pest control also have adverse effects. Excessive control of prairie dogs, for example, has nearly eliminated one of their natural predators, the black-footed ferret.

Pollution is another important cause of extinctions. Toxic chemicals —especially chlorinated hydrocarbons such as dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) — have become concentrated in food webs, affecting most strongly those species at the end of the chain. Both DDT and the PCBs, for example, interfere with the calcium metabolism of birds, causing soft-shelled eggs and malformed young. PCBs also impair reproduction in some carnivorous animals. Water pollution and increased water temperatures have wiped out endemic races of fish in several habitats.