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Amateur Naturalists

You

Passage below.

A

Tim

Sparks slides a small leather-bound notebook out of an envelope. The books

yellowing pages contain beekeeping notes made between 1941 and 1969 by the

late Walter Coates of Kilworth, Leicestershire. He adds it to his growing

pile of local journals, birdwatchers' lists and gardening diaries,

"We're uncovering about one major new record each month,” he says, “I

still get surprised." Around two centuries before Coates, Robert

Marsham, a landowner from Norfolk in the east of England, began recording the

life cycles of plants and animals on his estate when the first wood anemones

flowered, the dates on which the oaks burst into leaf and the rooks began

nesting. Successive Marshams continued compiling these notes for 211 years.

B

Today,

such records are being put to uses that their authors could not possibly have

expected. These data sets, and others like them, ire proving invaluable to

ecologists interested in the timing of biological events, or phenology. By

combining the records with climate data, researchers can reveal how, for

example, changes in temperature affect the arrived of spring, allowing

ecologists to make improved predictions about the impact of climate change. A

small band of researchers is combing through hundreds of years of records

taken by thousands of amateur naturalists. And more systematic projects have

also started up, producing on overwhelming response. "The amount of

interest is almost frightening," says Sparks, a climate researcher at

the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Monks Wood, Cambridgeshire.

C

Sparks

became aware of the army of "closet phenologists", as he describes

them, when a retiring colleague gave him the Marsham records. He now spends

much of his time following leads from one historical data set to another. As

news of his quest spreads, people tip him off to other historical records,

and more amateur phenologists come out of their closets. The British devotion

to recording and collecting makes his job easier - one man from: Kent sent

him 30 years' worth of kitchen calendar, on which he had noted the date that

his neighbour's magnolia tree flowered.

D

Other

researchers have unearthed data from equally odd sources. Rafe Sargarin

recently studied records of a betting contest in which participants attempt

to guess the exact time at which a specially erected wooden tripod will fall

through the surface of a thawing river. The competition has taken place

annually on the Tenana River in Alaska since 1917, and analysis of the

results showed that the thaw now arrives five days earlier than it did when

the contest began.

E

Overall,

Such records have helped to show that, compared with 20 years ago, a raft of

natural events now occur earlier across much of the northern hemisphere, from

the opening of leaves to the return of birds from migration and the emergence

of butterflies from hibernation . The data can also hint at how nature will

change in the future. Together with models of climate change, amateurs'

records could help guide conservation. Terry Root, an ecologist at the

University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, has collected birdwatchers' counts of

wildfowl taken between 1955 and 19% on seasonal ponds in the American.

Midwest and combined them with climate data and models of future warming. Her

analysis shows that the increased droughts that the models predict could

halve the breeding populations at the ponds. "The number of waterfowl in

North America will most probably drop significantly with global

warming," she says.

F

But

not all professionals are happy to use amateur data. "A lot of

scientists won't touch them, they say they're too full of problems,"

says Root. Because different observers can have different ideas of what

constitutes, for example, an open snowdrop. The biggest concern with ad hoc

observations is how carefully and systematically they were taken," says

Mark Schwartz of the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, who studies the

interactions between plants and climate. "We need to know pretty

precisely what a person's been observing - if they just say 'I noted when the

leaves came out', it might not be that useful." Measuring the onset of

autumn can be particularly problematic because deciding when leaves change

color is a more subjective process than noting when they appear.

G

Overall,

most phenologists are positive about the contribution that amateurs can make.

"They get at the raw power of science: careful observation of the

natural world," says Sagarin. But the professionals also acknowledge the

need for careful quality control. Root, for example, tries to gauge the

quality of an amateur archive by interviewing its collector. "You always

have to worry things as trivial as vacations can affect measurement. I

disregard a lot of records because they're not rigorous enough," she

says. Others suggest that the right statistics can iron out some of the

problems with amateur data. Together with colleagues at Wageningen University

in the Netherlands, environmental scientist Arnold van Vliet is developing

statistical techniques to account for the uncertainty in amateur phenological

data. With the enthusiasm of amateur phenologists evident from past records,

professional researchers are now trying to create standardized recording

schemes for future efforts. They hope that well-designed studies will

generate a volume of observations: large enough to drown out the idiosyncrasies

of individual recorders. The data are cheap to collect, and can provide

breadth in space, time and range of species. "It's very difficult to

collect data on a large geographical scale without enlisting an army of

observers," says Root.

H

Phenology

also helps to drive home messages about climate change. "Because the

public understand these records, they accept them," says Sparks. It can

also illustrate potentially unpleasant consequences, he adds, such as the

finding that more rat infestations are reported to local councils in warmer

years. And getting people involved is great for public relations.

"People are thrilled to think that the data they've been collecting as a

hobby can be used for something scientific -it empowers them," says Root.

Questions 27-33

The reading

Passage has seven paragraphs A-H

Which paragraph

contains the following information?

Write the correct

letter A-H, in boxes 27-33 on your answer sheet

27. Definition

of Phenology introduced

28. Sparks

first noticed amateur records

29. Surprise

function of casual data in science

30. It

seems like mission impossible without enormous amateur data collection

31. Example

of using amateur records for a scientific prediction

32. Records

from an amateur contributed to climate change

33. Collection

of old records compiled by a family of amateur naturalists

Questions 34-36

Complete

TWO WORDS from the Reading Passage for each answer. Write your

answers in boxes 34-36 on your

answer sheet.

34. In

Waiter Coates' records, there are plenty of information of .

35. Robert

Marsham is well-known for noting animals and plants' .

36. The

number of waterfowl in North America decreases because of increased according to some phenologists.

Questions 37-40

Choose the correct

letter, A, B, C, or D.

Write your answers

in boxes 37-40 on your answer sheet

37 Why do a lot of scientists question the amateurs’

data?

A. Data

collection is not professional

B. Amateur

observers are careless.

C. Amateur

data is not reliable sometimes.

D. They

have one-sided work experience

38 Example of leaves Mark Schwartz used to

explain that?

A. Amateur

records arc not reliable at all.

B. Amateur

records arc not well organized.

C. Some

details are very difficult to notice.

D. Valuable

information is accurate one.

39 What suggestion of scientists for the usage

of amateur data?

A. Use

modified and better approaches.

B. Only

Observation data is valuable.

C. Use

original materials instead of changed ones.

D. Method

of data collection is the most important.

40 What's the implication of phenology for

ordinary people?

A. It

enriches the knowledge of the public.

B. It

improves ordinary people's relations with scientists.

C. It

encourages people to collect more animal information.

D. It

arouses public awareness about climate change.