A smartphone program is helping scientists learn about changes taking place in nature. More than 100,000 citizen-scientists around the world are taking pictures of many kinds of plants and animals using a program called iNaturalist. The program gives researchers much information about where plants and animals live, and how a growing human population is changing plant and animal life.
In Arlington, Virginia, naturalists are making a record of the plants and animals that live in the heavily populated area.
Alonso Abugattas is the local government’s natural resources manager. He works to protect and improve Arlington’s natural spaces. The group is using the iNaturalist smartphone program to record its observations. Then iNaturalist users throughout the world can look at the images and try to help recognize them. The program records where and when the picture was taken. This lets experts like Abugattas and others create maps that show where plants and animals are living, and how that changes because of development and climate change. That is important in Arlington and around the world.
Scott Loarie is co-director of iNaturalist. He said species are dying at a faster speed than ever, and the mix of life on Earth is threatened. “And we’ve only begun to understand exactly how those ecosystems contribute to our food system, or human health—all these things that we depend on.”
Loarie says iNaturalist lets citizen-scientists help professional (专业的) scientists gather data of the wild plants and animals in the world. More than 100,000 iNaturalist observers on all seven continents have made more than four-and-a-half million observations. The information has been used in studies of other animals.
Alonso Abugattas says the group in Arlington recorded more than 450 kinds of animals and plants. “If you just open up your eyes to the natural world, you’d be amazed at what’s out there.”
【小题1】Which of the following is the function of the iNaturalist smartphone program?| A．Creating maps to show climate change. |
| B．Reminding experts to make out the photos. |
| C．Marking the time and places of the photos. |
| D．Writing down the names of species in the photos. |
| A．The goal of iNaturalist. |
| B．The regret for dying species. |
| C．The importance of scientists. |
| D．The value of species to humans. |
| A．It calls on people in the world to change nature. |
| B．It directly helps professional scientists to gather data. |
| C．It gets wildlife information and data from all over the world. |
| D．It lets professional scientists pay attention to humans’ behaviors. |
| A．Two Heads Are Better Than One |
| B．A Cheap Way to Study Plants and Animals |
| C．Measures Are Being Taken to Protect Plants and Animals |
| D．Naturalists Use a Smartphone Programme to Take Photos of Wildlife |
