Listening_Practice_Test_Part_3

Listening Practice Test: Part 3
Narrator
Listen to part of a lecture in a biology class.
Professor
Almost all animals have some way of regulating their body temperature; otherwise,
they wouldn’t survive extreme hot or cold conditions. Sweating, panting, swimming
to cooler or warmer water, ducking into somewhere cool like a burrow or a hole
under a rock … these are just a few. And that spot is colder or warmer than the
surrounding environment because it’s a microclimate.
A microclimate is a group of climate conditions that affect a localized area—weather

features like temperature, wind, moisture, and so on … And when I say localized, I
mean really localized, because microclimates can be, as the name suggests, pretty
small, even less than a square meter. And microclimates are affected by a huge
number of other variables … obviously weather conditions in the surrounding area
are a factor. But other aspects of the location, like, uh, the elevation of the land, uh,
the plant life nearby, and so on, have a substantial effect on microclimates. And, of
course, the human development in the area … um, a road’ll affect a nearby
microclimate. It’s also interesting to note that microclimates that are near each other
can have very different conditions … in the forest, for example, there can be a
number of very different microclimates close to each other because of all the
variables I just mentioned.
Student
So how does a hole in the ground, a burrow, stay cool in a hot climate?
Professor
Well, since cold air sinks, and these spots are shaded, they’re usually much cooler
than the surrounding area. And these spots are so important because many animals
rely on microclimates to regulate their body temperature. Um … for instance, there is
a species of squirrel in the western part of the United States that can get really hot
when they’re out foraging for food, so they need a way to cool down. So what do
they do? They go back to their own burrow. Once they get there, their body
temperatures decrease very, very quickly. The trip to the burrow prevents the
squirrel from getting too hot.
Student
But squirrels are mammals, right? I thought mammals regulated their temperature
internally …
Professor
Mammals do have the ability to regulate their body temperature … but not all can do
it to the same degree. Or even the same way. Like when you walk outside on a hot
day you perspire and your body cools itself down—a classic example of how a
mammal regulates its own body temperature. But one challenge that squirrels face,
well, many small mammals do, is that because of their size, sweating would make
them lose too much moisture. They’d dehydrate. But on the other hand, their small
size allows them to fit into very tiny spaces. So for small mammals, microclimates can
make a big difference—they rely on microclimates for survival.
Student
So cold-blooded animals, like reptiles—they can’t control their own body temperature,
so I can imagine the effect a microclimate would have on them …
Professor
Yes. Many reptiles and insects rely on microclimates to control their body
temperature. A lot of reptiles use burrows … or stay under rocks to cool down. Of
course, with reptiles, it’s a balancing act. Staying in the heat for too long can lead to
problems, but staying in the cold can do the same. So reptiles hafta be really precise
about where they spend their time, even how they position their bodies. And when I
say they’re precise I mean it—some snakes will search out a place under rocks of a
specific thickness, because too thin a rock doesn’t keep them cool enough and too
thick a rock will cause them to get too cold. That level of precision is critical to the
snake for maintaining its body temperature.
And even microscopic organisms rely on microclimates for survival. Think about this:
decomposing leaves create heat that warms the soil; the warm soil in turn affects the
growth, the conditions of organisms there, and those organisms then affect the rate
of decomposition of the leaves … So a microclimate can be something so small and
so easily disturbed that even a tiny change can have a big impact. If someone on a
hike knocks a couple of rocks over, they could be unwittingly destroying a
microclimate that an animal or organism relies on.

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Listening Practice Test: Part 3

A microclimate is a group of climate conditions that affect a localized area—weather

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