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2014年职称英语考试补全短文练习题 Ants as a Barometer of Ecological Change At picnics, ants are pests. But they have their uses. In industries such as mining, farming and forestry, they can help gauge the health of the environment by just crawling around and being antsy. It has been recognized for decades that antswhich are highly sensitive to ecological changecan provide a near-percent barometer of the state of an ecosystem. Only certain species, for instance, will continue to thrive at a forest site that has been cleared of trees. __________ And still others will move in and take up residence. By looking at which species populate a deforested area, scientists can determine how stressed the land is. __________ Ants are used simply because they are so common and comprise so many species. Where mine sites are being restored, for example, some ant species will recognize the stripped land more quickly than others. __________ Australian mining company Capricorn Coal Management has been successfully using ant surveys for years to determine the rate of recovery of land that it is replanting near its German Creek mine in Queensland. Ant surveys also have been used with mine-site recovery projects in Africa and Brazil, where warm climates encourage dense and diverse ant populations. We found it worked extremely well there, says Jonathan Majer, a professor of environmental biology. Yet the surveys are perfectly suited to climates throughout Asia, he says, because ants are so common throughout the region. As Majer puts it: Thats the great thing about ants. | 
