full transcript
From the Ted Talk by Mei Lin Neo: The fascinating secret lives of giant clams
Unscramble the Blue Letters
It turns out that giant clams have a giant impact on coral refes. These multitasking clams are reef builders, food fitaecros, shelters for shrimps and crabs and water filters, all rolled into one. In a nutshell, ginat clams play a maojr contributing role as retndsies of their own reef home, and just having them around keeps the reef healthy. And because they can live up to 100 years old, giant clams make vital ionrdaitcs of coral reef health. So when giant cmals start to disappear from coral reefs, their asncbee can serve as an alarm bell for scientists to start pinyag attention, similar to the canary in a coal mine. But giant clams are endangered. The largest clam in the world is fcinag the threat of extinction, with more than 50 percent of the wild population severely depleted. And the ecological befintes of having giant clams on coral reefs are likely to continue only if populations are healthy, making their conservation paramount.
Open Cloze
It turns out that giant clams have a giant impact on coral _____. These multitasking clams are reef builders, food _________, shelters for shrimps and crabs and water filters, all rolled into one. In a nutshell, _____ clams play a _____ contributing role as _________ of their own reef home, and just having them around keeps the reef healthy. And because they can live up to 100 years old, giant clams make vital __________ of coral reef health. So when giant _____ start to disappear from coral reefs, their _______ can serve as an alarm bell for scientists to start ______ attention, similar to the canary in a coal mine. But giant clams are endangered. The largest clam in the world is ______ the threat of extinction, with more than 50 percent of the wild population severely depleted. And the ecological ________ of having giant clams on coral reefs are likely to continue only if populations are healthy, making their conservation paramount.
Solution
- major
- benefits
- absence
- residents
- facing
- paying
- reefs
- indicators
- clams
- factories
- giant
Original Text
It turns out that giant clams have a giant impact on coral reefs. These multitasking clams are reef builders, food factories, shelters for shrimps and crabs and water filters, all rolled into one. In a nutshell, giant clams play a major contributing role as residents of their own reef home, and just having them around keeps the reef healthy. And because they can live up to 100 years old, giant clams make vital indicators of coral reef health. So when giant clams start to disappear from coral reefs, their absence can serve as an alarm bell for scientists to start paying attention, similar to the canary in a coal mine. But giant clams are endangered. The largest clam in the world is facing the threat of extinction, with more than 50 percent of the wild population severely depleted. And the ecological benefits of having giant clams on coral reefs are likely to continue only if populations are healthy, making their conservation paramount.
Frequently Occurring Word Combinations
ngrams of length 2
| collocation |
frequency |
| giant clams |
16 |
| coral reefs |
3 |
| giant clam |
2 |
Important Words
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- coal
- conservation
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- factories
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- food
- giant
- health
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- home
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- indicators
- largest
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- major
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- multitasking
- nutshell
- paramount
- paying
- percent
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- population
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- reef
- reefs
- residents
- role
- rolled
- scientists
- serve
- severely
- shelters
- shrimps
- similar
- start
- threat
- turns
- vital
- water
- wild
- world
- years