雅思阅读

📖 Reading Passage

The concept of 'environmental resilience' has gained prominence in ecological studies, referring to an ecosystem's capacity to absorb disturbances while maintaining its fundamental structure and functions. Recent research indicates that resilience is not a static property but varies with the intensity and frequency of stressors. For instance, coral reefs may recover from mild bleaching events, yet repeated thermal stress can push them past a critical threshold, leading to a permanent shift to algae-dominated states. This phenomenon, termed 'regime shift', underscores the nonlinearity of ecological responses. Moreover, human interventions, such as reducing local pollution or overfishing, can enhance an ecosystem's resilience by alleviating cumulative pressures, thereby providing a buffer against global climate impacts. However, scholars caution that such measures are insufficient if global greenhouse gas emissions continue unabated, as they alter the fundamental environmental conditions upon which ecosystems depend.