今天前程百利小编为大家分享的是托福听力的背景材料-公路噪声影响鸟类迁徙。大家都知道托福听力段子都来源于美国学生的大学校园生活，所以无处不透漏着美式思维。那么小编就为大家整理原汁原味的美式的背景材料为大家的托福听力备考助力。
原文：
Researchers built a "phantom road" through wilderness using tree-mounted speakers to play traffic sounds, and witnessed a decline in bird fitness and diversity. Christopher Intagliata reports
Building a road through wilderness certainly has a visible impact on local flora and fauna—you're physically paving over a slice of what was once habitat. But roads have less obvious effects, too. Like the introduction of traffic noise, which also takes a toll. "You can see an oil spill but you can't see a traffic noise spill. So convincing people that it's important is a little more difficult."
Heidi Ware, an ornithologist at the Intermountain Bird Observatory in Boise, Idaho. She and her colleagues studied the reactions by birds to the sounds of vehicles. And they did it without paving the great outdoors. Instead, they mounted 15 pairs of speakers on Douglas fir trees, along a ridge near Boise, and played traffic noise. <> They thus created what they call a "phantom road" through the wilderness, which boosted local noise levels 10 decibels higher than those in the surrounding forest.
Turns out just the sounds of traffic scared away a third of the area’s usual avian visitors, and cut species diversity too. And birds of multiple species were not able to pack on as much fat to fuel their migrations, when they were forced to dine to the soundtrack of traffic.
Follow-up experiments in the lab found that, when it's noisy, birds spend a lot less time head down, pecking at food, and a lot more time scanning their surroundings. "You can imagine if you take away that ability to listen for predators, birds have to compensate by looking around more. It sort of wastes their time, right? Instead of spending their time eating they have to spend their time doing other things." The study is in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Ware says Yosemite, Glacier and Rocky Mountain National Parks all have roads that are busy enough to produce these effects. And, short of closing park roads to traffic, she says things like rubberized asphalt and lower speed limits could help cut the noise. "Glacier National Park is going to put up signs, that instead of showing your speed and preventing people from speeding, it's going to show how loud their car is on the road." Which, hopefully, will continue to encourage wilderness lovers to leave no trace—visible or audible.
专业词汇
Phantom n. 幽灵;幻影;虚位adj. 幽灵的;幻觉的;有名无实的
Flora n. 植物区系;植物群
Spill n. 溢出，溅出;溢出量;摔下;小塞子n. (Spill)人名;(德)施皮尔vt. 使溢出，使流出;使摔下vi. 溢出，流出;摔下;涌流
Ornithologist n. 鸟类学者
Wilderness n. 荒地;大量，茫茫一片
Avian n. 鸟n. (Avian)人名;(意、英)阿维安adj. 鸟的;鸟类的
Soundtrack n. 声带;声道;声迹;电影配音
Pecking vt. 啄，啄起;啄食：;啄穿;啄成，啄掘：vi. 啄;啄穿;凿：;一点一点地吃，勉强吃：
n. 啄;凿;琢;啄痕;啄(或琢)出的洞
compensate vt. 补偿，赔偿;付报酬vi. 补偿，赔偿;抵消
长难句解析：
1. Building a road through wilderness certainly has a visible impact on local flora and fauna—you're physically paving over a slice of what was once habitat.
难句类型：
What引导的名词性从句
句子主干：
Building a road has a visible impact
难句拆分：
Building a road ，v-ing作主语;of what was once habitat，What引导的名词性从句。
2. They thus created what they call a "phantom road" through the wilderness, which boosted local noise levels 10 decibels higher than those in the surrounding forest.
难句类型：
What引导的宾语从句+Which引导的非限制性定语从句
句子主干：
They created "phantom road"
难句拆分：
what they call a "phantom road" through the wilderness，What引导的宾语从句;which boosted local noise levels 10 decibels higher than those in the surrounding forest，Which引导的非限制性定语从句。
文本结构特点：
本篇文章主要讲的是穿过荒野修建公路，肯定会对植物群和动物群产生明显的影响。经过研究公路噪声对于鸟类的迁徙也有很大的影响。
好了，以上就是前程百利小编为大家整理的备考托福听力背景材料以及专业词汇的学习。希望能在备考托福的路上助大家一臂之力。最后，小编预祝大家在托福考试中取得好成绩。
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