2023年12月六级第3套仔细阅读 Passage 2 原文翻译及答案解析

Spiders make their presence felt in late August and through early autumn. This is the mating season of some of the most common varieties, when male house spiders come out of hidden corners to look for females, and garden spiders reach adult size and spin their most dazzling webs.

蜘蛛的踪迹常在夏末秋初显现。此时正值某些常见蜘蛛的交配季节，雄性家蛛会从隐蔽角落爬出寻找雌蛛，园蛛也发育成熟并编织出最令人惊叹的蛛网。

Yet while the spider is a familiar fixture of nursery poems or songs and Halloween decorations, its relationship with humans is complicated. Fear of spiders is common and has serious impacts on the lives of sufferers. Its prevalence appears unrelated to any rational assessment of risk. Spiders in the UK are almost all harmless. Farmland species perform valuable ecosystem services, by preying on insects that are our competitors for crops. But they are a constant source of human anxieties—with a cultural association with witches and wickedness dating back to the middle ages.

然而，尽管蜘蛛是童谣和万圣节装饰中熟悉的元素，它们与人类的关系却颇为复杂。蜘蛛恐惧症相当普遍，对患者的生活影响严重。这种恐惧似乎与理性风险评估无关——英国的蜘蛛几乎全部无害。农田蜘蛛捕食与人类争夺农作物的昆虫，为生态系统提供重要服务。但它们始终是人类焦虑的源头，这种文化关联可追溯至中世纪与巫术和邪恶的联系。

Does this perhaps explain, in part, the lack of data about how spiders are faring in our age of ecological crisis? British butterflies are the most studied group of insects in the world, due to the long tradition of collecting and observing them. But spider conservationists point out that it was only in the 1980s that the classification of house spiders was properly sorted out. And while information about insect populations is gathered by experiments that measure the numbers hitting windscreens or traps, there have been few attempts to count spiders.

这是否能部分解释，在生态危机时代关于蜘蛛生存状况的数据如此匮乏？由于长期收集观察的传统，英国蝴蝶成为全球研究最深入的昆虫类群。但蜘蛛保护专家指出，直到20世纪80年代家蛛的分类才被彻底厘清。虽然可通过实验（如统计撞击挡风玻璃或落入陷阱的昆虫数量）收集昆虫种群信息，但针对蜘蛛的计数尝试却寥寥无几。

The huge reductions in the numbers of flying insects can only mean a reduction in spiders' food supply. A recent landmark study identified a 75% fall in insect populations between 1989 and 2016, with pesticide use thought to be to blame along with the destruction of wild areas for development. This means the overall picture for spiders is worrying, as it is for most creatures. But conservationists are most concerned about those varieties that are threatened due to habitat loss and fragmentation, which makes it impossible for them to migrate.

飞行昆虫数量的锐减必然导致蜘蛛食物供应减少。近期一项里程碑研究指出，1989至2016年间昆虫种群下降75%，原因除栖息地被开发破坏外，农药使用也被认为难辞其咎。这意味着蜘蛛的整体生存状况令人担忧，多数生物亦面临同样困境。但保护者最关注的是那些因栖息地丧失和碎片化而濒危的品种，这使得它们无法迁徙。

Of around 650 spider species regularly recorded in the UK, the majority thrive in marshes and wasteland. Conservation efforts, often led by determined individuals, have helped some species to recover by reintroducing them to new areas. With rewilding now firmly on the environmental policy agenda, the hope is that in future, spiders will be enabled to migrate by themselves, adapting to climate change by moving along wildlife corridors.

英国常规记录的约650种蜘蛛中，多数在沼泽和荒地繁衍生息。通过将个别物种重新引入新栖息地，常由个人主导的保护工作已帮助部分品种恢复数量。随着荒野重塑计划被明确纳入环境政策议程，未来有望通过建立生态廊道使蜘蛛自主迁徙，从而适应气候变化。

It seems unlikely that spiders will ever attract the same level of human enthusiasm as bees, birds or butterflies, in spite of their unique status as nature's spinners. But as they reveal themselves in all their splendour this autumn, it would be a good thing if more animal lovers recognised the ways in which spiders are simply terrific.

尽管蜘蛛拥有“自然纺纱工”的独特地位，它们恐怕永远无法像蜜蜂、鸟类或蝴蝶那样赢得人类同等的热情。但当这些生物在秋日尽展风采时，若能有更多动物爱好者认识到蜘蛛的非凡之处，将是一件美好的事情。