Every year millions of breeding monarch butterflies in the U. S. and southern Canada search for milkweed plants on which to lay their eggs. Concern over shrinking habitat(居住地) has urged conservationists to create monarch-friendly spaces along roadsides, which are more than enough within the butterflies range and usually publicly owned. But traffic noise stresses monarch caterpillars out, a new study finds. They eventually do become desensitized to it—but that might cause trouble to them later on, too.
每年在美国和加拿大南部，数百万只繁殖的帝王蝴蝶寻找蒲公英植物来产卵。对栖息地缩小的担忧促使保护人士在公路旁边创建有利于帝王蝴蝶的空间，这些空间通常位于蝴蝶的活动范围之内，而且通常是公共所有的。但一项新研究发现，交通噪音会让帝王蝴蝶幼虫感到压力。他们最终会对噪音变得麻木——但这也可能会给它们带来以后的麻烦。

Noise pollution is known to affect the lives of birds, whales and other creatures. But until recently, scientists had never tested whether it leads to a stress response in insects. When Andy Davis, a conservation physiologist at the University of Georgia, noticed online videos of roadside monarch caterpillars apparently trembling as cars came by, he wondered how the constant noise might affect them. Davis built a custom caterpillar heart monitor, fitting a small sensor into a microscope to precisely measure monarch caterpillars’heart rates as they listened to recordings of traffic sounds in the laboratory.
噪音污染已知会影响鸟类、鲸鱼和其他生物的生活。但直到最近，科学家们从未测试过它是否会导致昆虫的应激反应。当乔治亚大学的保护生理学家安迪·戴维斯注意到网上有关路边的帝王蝴蝶幼虫在汽车经过时似乎在颤抖的视频时，他想知道持续的噪音如何会影响它们。戴维斯制作了一个定制的幼虫心脏监测仪，将一个小传感器安装到显微镜中，精确地测量帝王蝴蝶幼虫在实验室里听到交通声音时的心率。

The hearts of caterpillars exposed to highway noise for two hours beat 17 percent faster than those of caterpillars in a silent room. But the heart rates of the noise-exposed group returned to baseline levels after hearing the traffic sounds nonstop for their entire 12-day development period, Davis and his colleagues reported in May in Biology Letters.
接受高速公路噪音影响两小时的幼虫心率比安静房间里的幼虫心率快17%。但戴维斯和他的同事们在5月份发表在《生物学通讯》上的报告中指出，接受噪音影响的组的心率在整个12天的发育期内不间断听交通声音后恢复到基线水平。
This desensitization could be problematic when the caterpillars become adults, Davis says. A rapid stress response is vital for monarch butterflies on their two-month journey to spend winters in Mexico, as they narrowly escape predators(捕食者) and
这种麻木可能会对幼虫成为成虫后造成问题，戴维斯表示。快速的应激反应对于帝王蝴蝶在两个月的旅程中冬眠在墨西哥是至关重要的，因为它们要险些避开捕食者和对抗风流。

fight wind currents.
干扰。

Whether a noisy developmental period reduces monarchs’ survival rates remains unknown, notes Ryan Norris, an ecologist at the University of Guelph in Ontario, who was not involved in the study. But in any case, he believes roadside habitat almost certainly drive up the butterflies’death rates as a result of crashes with cars.”There is so much potential road habitat for monarchs and other insects— it would be such a nice thing to capitalize on,” Norris says.”But you just can’t get around the traffic.”Davis adds:”I think roads and monarchs just don’t mix.”63. By “They eventually do become desensitized to it”, the writer means that
路边栖息地是否会减少帝王蝴蝶的存活率尚不清楚，安大略省圭尔夫大学的生态学家瑞恩·诺里斯指出，并没有参与研究。但无论如何，他相信路边栖息地几乎肯定会增加蝴蝶因与汽车相撞而死亡的几率。“对于帝王蝶和其他昆虫来说，还有许多潜在的道路栖息地——利用这一点将是一件很好的事情，”诺里斯说。“但你就是无法避免交通。”戴维斯补充说：“我认为道路和帝王蝶是不相容的。”

1. By “They eventually do become desensitized to it”, the writer means that
   A. monarch caterpillars react less strongly to noise
   B. monarch caterpillars are stressed out by road noise
   C. conservationists are worried about butterflies habitat
   D. conservationists no longer create monarch-friendly spaces
   答案：A

2. What inspired Andy Davis to explore the effect of noise on monarch caterpillars?
   A. There had been little research on monarch caterpillars.
   B. Videos showed cars crashed into monarch caterpillars.
   C. There was no such record of monarch caterpillars’heart rates.
   D. He found that monarch caterpillars shook with cars moving by.
   答案：D

3. According to Andy Davis, how will exposure to noise influence monarch butterflies?
   A. They are likely to need more time to develop.
   B. They are likely to lose their way on their journey.
   C. They are more likely to be killed in their migration.
   D. They are more likely to die before they become adults.
   答案：C

4. What is Ryan Norris most likely to agree with?
   A. Monarchs5 survival rates are decreasing each year.
   B. It is not recommended that roadside habitat be built for insects.
   C. More capital is needed to study monarchs? developmental period.
   D. Butterflies’rising death rates have nothing to do with moving cars.
   答案：B