complex sentence

Question

rick: our studies actually looked at the effect of forest fragmentation from patches that are about 15 to in size down to ones that are less than one acre in size, so that's the range in which we were looking at the impact on lyme disease risk.

(Can you make a comment and simplify this)

Avangi · Accepted Answer

There are too many unknowns here for someone who is not familiar with the study.

Risk to whom? It almost sounds like we're talking about risk to the trees. But I believe my first wife's husband has Lyme's disease (*** bless him) and he's a deer hunter, and my understanding is that humans pick up this disease in forests which are populated by deer. (I'm too lazy to Google it. - Perhaps you know more about it then you let on.) Edit. (from deer ticks)

So let's say "lyme disease risk" refers to the chances a human has of contracting the disease under various conditions.

Impact of what? This is a complete mystery to me. It's conceivable that we're talking about one aspect of the fragmentation itself - size. That is, if a hunter restricts his range to a single patch of forest (where deforestation has caused a once continuous (and possibly huge) forest to be broken up (fragmented) into isolated patches of various sizes), are his chances of contracting the disease greater in the small patches, or in the larger patches?

But my inclination is to think we're studying the impact of a certain factor, or certain factors, which is/are listed in prior context.

"Looked at the effect" - I think effect and impact mean the same here.

"From patches" - "From" here does not mean "the effect from patches." It means "the effect of patches from big to small," on Lyme's disease risk. OR "the effect found in patches from big to small [on something]."

Anyway, my guess is that the size of the patch is only one among several factors which the study considers.

There seems to be an implication here that the fact is already established that Lyme's disease is more prevalent in fragmented forests than in virgin forests, since no mention is made here of virgin forests being included in the study.

I think any attempt by me to simplify the sentence would be wasted, since I'm guessing at so much of the meaning.

- A.

Edit. Sorry about the spelling. I always thought it was "Lyme's disease." Keep the capital but lose the possessive.

AlpheccaStars · Answer

The way to deal with complex sentences is to break them up into several. For example:

We looked at the changes in the risk of contracting lyme disease as a function of forest fragmentation. Our study considered forest patches ranging in size from less than an acre up to 15-20 acres.

complex sentence

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions