full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Luka Seamus Wright: The sharks that hunt in forests

Unscramble the Blue Letters

While birds nest among mangrove bhanercs, fish lay eggs amidst their sprawling, complex root sstyems. sbymotiic sponges and sea squirts protect their host trees from hungry woodboring crustaceans. Crabs, snails, and shrimp eat algae, mussels, barnacles, and salty mangrove detritus. These aimlnas in turn feed fish, which are devoured by shark pups rmnoiag the roots— alongside oanccaosil vegetarian meals of seagrass. But sharks aren’t just the beneficiaries of marine forests, they’re part of the glue that holds them together. Sharks limit the abundance of animals which would otherwise overgraze these essential plants. Just as manire forests provide shelter to vlubrlenae baby predators, those pdtoaerrs grow up to prtoect their forest homes.

Open Cloze

While birds nest among mangrove ________, fish lay eggs amidst their sprawling, complex root _______. _________ sponges and sea squirts protect their host trees from hungry woodboring crustaceans. Crabs, snails, and shrimp eat algae, mussels, barnacles, and salty mangrove detritus. These _______ in turn feed fish, which are devoured by shark pups _______ the roots— alongside __________ vegetarian meals of seagrass. But sharks aren’t just the beneficiaries of marine forests, they’re part of the glue that holds them together. Sharks limit the abundance of animals which would otherwise overgraze these essential plants. Just as ______ forests provide shelter to __________ baby predators, those _________ grow up to _______ their forest homes.

Solution

  1. symbiotic
  2. roaming
  3. animals
  4. marine
  5. vulnerable
  6. protect
  7. occasional
  8. systems
  9. branches
  10. predators

Original Text

While birds nest among mangrove branches, fish lay eggs amidst their sprawling, complex root systems. Symbiotic sponges and sea squirts protect their host trees from hungry woodboring crustaceans. Crabs, snails, and shrimp eat algae, mussels, barnacles, and salty mangrove detritus. These animals in turn feed fish, which are devoured by shark pups roaming the roots— alongside occasional vegetarian meals of seagrass. But sharks aren’t just the beneficiaries of marine forests, they’re part of the glue that holds them together. Sharks limit the abundance of animals which would otherwise overgraze these essential plants. Just as marine forests provide shelter to vulnerable baby predators, those predators grow up to protect their forest homes.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
marine forests 5
mangrove species 2

Important Words

  1. abundance
  2. algae
  3. animals
  4. baby
  5. barnacles
  6. beneficiaries
  7. birds
  8. branches
  9. complex
  10. crabs
  11. crustaceans
  12. detritus
  13. devoured
  14. eat
  15. eggs
  16. essential
  17. feed
  18. fish
  19. forest
  20. forests
  21. glue
  22. grow
  23. holds
  24. homes
  25. host
  26. hungry
  27. lay
  28. limit
  29. mangrove
  30. marine
  31. meals
  32. mussels
  33. nest
  34. occasional
  35. overgraze
  36. part
  37. plants
  38. predators
  39. protect
  40. provide
  41. pups
  42. roaming
  43. root
  44. salty
  45. sea
  46. seagrass
  47. shark
  48. sharks
  49. shelter
  50. shrimp
  51. snails
  52. sponges
  53. sprawling
  54. squirts
  55. symbiotic
  56. systems
  57. trees
  58. turn
  59. vegetarian
  60. vulnerable
  61. woodboring