【英语时差8,16】计划生育，是蚜虫的风格

 

 

If you keep a garden and have never been bothered by aphids, you are lucky.   

But one day you may find your rose bushes or bean plants covered--almost overnight--with these green, greedy sap-suckers. What allows aphids--and thousands of other species--to appear so fast is a trick these insects have developed for circumventing¹ the old rule about the birds and the bees.

 

During the summer months when aphid-food is plentiful², aphids reproduce through a process called "parthenogenesis," from the Latin words "virgin⁴ birth." What that means is that female aphids give birth to more female aphids without ever seeing a male. As soon as those daughters mature, they produce their own offspring, and so on.

 

Without the search for mates or the ensuing courtship rituals, parthenogenesis means big savings⁵ in time and energy: in just one season, a single aphid can give rise to billions of descendants.

 

But in the fall, fresh food gets harder to find and there'd no longer be any reason for producing so many offspring. So now a generation of aphids is born that includes males as well as females. And what happens next between the males and females is just what you might expect.

 

Why aphids would turn from parthenogenesis to something as messy and inefficient⁶ as sex is another story, but in short, sexual reproduction is nature's way of shuffling⁷ the genes³ to create variety. Each of the offspring inherits a random⁸ mix of the parents' genes. And variety is what enables species to adapt and evolve as the environment changes.

But when summer returns and the living is easy, the aphids give up on variety and reproduce once again in the fastest way they know how.  

1 circumventing   

v.设法克服或避免（某事物），回避( circumvent的现在分词 )；绕过，绕行，绕道旅行

参考例句：

• They found a way of circumventing the law. 他们找到了规避法律的途径。
• This viewpoint sees the Multinational Corporation as capable of circumventing or subverting national objectives and policies. 这种观点认为，跨国公司能够遏制和破坏国家的目标和政策。 来自辞典例句

2 plentiful   

adj.富裕的，丰富的

参考例句：

• Their family has a plentiful harvest this year.他们家今年又丰收了。
• Rainfall is plentiful in the area.这个地区雨量充足。

3 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

4 virgin   

n.处女，未婚女子；adj.未经使用的；未经开发的

参考例句：

• Have you ever been to a virgin forest?你去过原始森林吗？
• There are vast expanses of virgin land in the remote regions.在边远地区有大片大片未开垦的土地。

5 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

6 inefficient   

adj.效率低的，无效的

参考例句：

• The inefficient operation cost the firm a lot of money.低效率的运作使该公司损失了许多钱。
• Their communication systems are inefficient in the extreme.他们的通讯系统效率非常差。

7 shuffling   

adj. 慢慢移动的, 滑移的 动词shuffle的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• Don't go shuffling along as if you were dead. 别像个死人似地拖着脚走。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• Some one was shuffling by on the sidewalk. 外面的人行道上有人拖着脚走过。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹

8 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。