Talk:Ecology

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stuff moved from the article

references

Humboldt, A. von, 1805. Essai sur la géographie des plantes, accompagné d’un tableau physique des régions équinoxiales, fondé sur les mésures exécutées, depuis le dixième degré de latitude boréale jusqu’au dixième degré de latitude australe, pendant les années 1799, 1800, 1801, 1802, et 1903 par A. De Humboldt et A. Bonpland. Paris: Chez Levrault, Schoelle et Cie. Sherborn Fund Fascimile No.1.

Humboldt, A. 1805. Voyage de Humboldt et Bonpland. Voyage aux régions équinoxiales du nouveau continent. 5e partie. “Essai sur la géographie des plantes”. Paris. Facs intégral de l’édition Paris 1905-1834 par Amsterdam: Theatrum orbis terrarum Ltd., 1973.

Humboldt, A. 1807. Essai sur la géographie des plantes. Facs.ed. London 1959. His essay on “On Isothermal Lines” was published serially in English translation in the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal from 1820 to 1822.

not really necessary in the article itself, but it was to solve the issue of a date of publication (1805 or 1807) - Anthère 00:48, 15 Nov 2003 (UTC)

I moved these to Ecology (history) where they are important references. - Marshman 02:25, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

moved from the page 2

The environment includes both the abiotic environment &#151 non-living things like climate and geology &#151 and the biotic environment &#151 living things like plants and animals. Much of ecological research is concerned with the distribution and abundance of organisms and how distributions are influenced by characteristics of the environment. Organisms influence their environment and the environment influences organisms.

From an ecological point of view, the Earth consists of a hydrosphere, a lithosphere, a geosphere and a biosphere. An assemblage of natural communities and species, within areas of ecological potential based on soil, climate and topography parameters are called ecoregions, and constitute a basic element in ecology.

Food chain vs food webs

I have a concern with the section on food chains & food networks. These are two very different models. The food chain describes the lineral pathway of nutrients from producers to consumers etc as you wrote. But the network is a very different model. While the food chain only visualizes alinear progression of heirarchy, there is no such heirarchy in a food web/ network. We realize that most of the nutrient source is constantly cycling through the system with only a small amount added to the system at any one time (just enough to build back what's lost through entropy.

I agree with you. I wanted to write at the same type about theory as often explained in books (linear type) and the reality (the food web). I perhaps was not clear, and mixed them both. Feel free to fix this to make it clearer :-) PomPom

Re: sub articles

Re : the article is getting long, consider moving paragraph to sub articles.

Please, Lexor, consider reading my opinion on agglomeration at User talk:The Cunctator/Agglomeration.

As far as I am concerned, I do not plan to add anything more to that article. So it won't get any longer from me :-)

In doing this article, I meant to build a central place, where all the important notions could be laid down. A sort of overview of the whole field. If all these notions are removed, to be placed in their respective articles, with just a link left into place, the integration of these notions that I tried to do, will just be lost.

For example, the paragraph named homeostasis (that could be renamed if necessary, I failed to find better one), is linking and introducing abiotic ecological factor, biotic ecological factor, specific relationships, food chains, ecological niche, biogeochemical cycles, feedback controls, homeostasis and climax. Removing these to place them in their respective articles will result in removing information, the one that is providing quick reference to understand how they all relate together. We could in effect replace the whole current article with about 20 bulleted links, and let the user take care of reading 20 articles instead of one that is trying to give an overview. I do not support this. In writing this article, I tried to provide a new level of reading, global reading. If people want to know more or understand best a concept, they can then go to the more specialized articles. I think it is also a bad idea to support removing information from "here" just because some of it is in the more specialised articles. Most of the specialised articles are currently just drafts, and highly incomplete. When they are complete, we will have achieved both the broad and the depth. Please, do not remove the general information to try to hide the scarcity of the specialised information. Thanks. --Anthere

I wasn't suggesting moving all of this information out, in fact you could probably leave most of it there, but consider moving some more specialized information to the sub-articles. I think your goal of an global/overview summary of a field is good and I don't want to take away from that: there are far too many articles on wikipedia that are a list of bullet points to other articles, so I know where you are coming from. So it's just a question of balance. Right now, I think it's more-or-less fine, just a little slimming and trimming here and there might be appropriate. But if it got too much longer it could turn into an unruly beast. But at the very least we should make sure the linked-to Main articles (aka sub-articles) have at least the same level of information (and preferrably more in an "expanded" form) as the overview article. It looks strange if a Main (specialized) article is orders-of-magnitude shorter than the section in the overview article. Have a look at the articles Simulation (which I did a significant degree of copyedit/re-organization) and Computer simulation (which I created) for an example of the sort of balance I am suggesting. --Lexor 12:37, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Simulation and simulation computer are very good examples on which you did good job. Yes, that is what I mean, and what I tried to do on w:fr:cuisine as well or a bit on biodiversity (but that one was a long time ago, and really need further work...). You are right that it is very important that "sub articles" are more expanded that the main one...Perhaps some points here might be moved...but I think they should rather be kept here, and expanded there.

I started at the top of the article a few days ago...to make links. At least that all people that had an impact on ecology development and who are leasted here, are identified as precursors in their own article, and are linked back here.

I suppose I will go down at time goes down and feed the sub articles little by little to ensure they are richer.

Anthere, I read your comments on User talk:The Cunctator/Agglomeration and I think we're basically in agreement about the level of agglomeration vs. splitting, as you say, for big topics it's clearly appropriate. Any tweaks I would do to the current entry would be fairly minor. It also looks like the Main articles are fairly robust articles in and of themselves, so the second problem with over-short specialized and too-long main articles looks less an issue in the case of Ecology. But, in general, its a problem that I think should be addressed. --Lexor 12:50, 17 Dec 2003 (UTC)

You are right it is important. I will try to make all these major sub articles my priorities somehow. Perhaps the homeostasis one is the lighter. Well, that is a work in progress...

In any case, I am glad you basically share my pov on agglomeration vs splitting, so I trust your twists will be ok. Please, just try to keep at least in one part of the main article, all the links currently available. Thanks

List breakouts

There are a number of places where lists could be broken out and referenced; lists embedded in articles contribute disproportionately to length for the content that they provide. Courtland 14:44, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

Chemical ecology

What about Chemical ecology! It is quite an important area in Ecology!

Understanding

The environment is at the same time the product and the condition of this activity and thus of the survival of the species.

Any species has an activity. This activity is required at the species level for the existence of the species itself. Besides, this activity has a role in the system itself. It is part of a collection of activity, that in the end make the whole system work.

In doing this activity, there are consequences on the environment of life of the species. For example, the bees needs flower plants to feed on, and in feeding on these plants, they at the same time pollinate these plants. So the bees are an important part of that chain that insure the reproduction of flower plants. The environnement is the "condition" of existence of the bees (if there are no flowers, then the bees die).

But at the same time, the environment is the product of the species activity. When bees pollinate flowers, they allow their reproduction, and garanty there will be flowers next year. If there are no pollinators, then flowers are not pollinated, and the year after, there are no more flowers and the bees have nothing to feed on. This way, the feeding and pollinating activity on year N, has an impact on the environnement that make it possible for the bees to continue their activity in year N+1. You may say the environnement is the "product" of the species activity.

The survival of a species will require both that the environment of life is initially suitable to that species (the "condition") and that the activity of that species does not transform it so much that it de-facto becomes unsuitable ("the product").

If it is still not clear, think to human species as a species, clean water as a required environnmental factor for the human species survival, and of human activity as one factor that has an impact of quality and availability of water.

yes ?

oh, and of course, thanks for the copyediting :-)

(--anthere)

Ok, I think by "product and condition" you mean "cause and consequence", then. Do I have it right? Martin 00:00, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

you were doing cleaning up :-) perhaps "requirement" and "consequence" is more accurate ?

That sounds good. :) Martin 13:36, 13 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I do not think the msg about biology is appropriate here. The fields mentionned are not. And it is disputed that ecology is a subfield of biology. FirmLittleFluffyThing 05:49, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Note that the last version of the parag said biological sciences not biology. But anyway those are just arbitrary names, and the question about which science is contained in which is pure "angel sex" stuff, without any meaning or consequence. Nature doesn't give a damn about man's (or woman's) pretense to "organize" it into "sciences". IMHO the page is better without that parag.Jorge Stolfi 16:59, 10 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Ecosystem Engineers

I find dispute with the line in the "Ecological Crisis" section towards the end that states that humans are the only species that can affect their environment. I have edited it so say "globally" and this was returned to its prior state. Almost every organism modifies its environment in some way. Please read up on "ecosystem engieers." See http://www.ecology.info/ecosystem-engineers.htm for instance. Think of beavers, etc. Any thoughts?

In Niche Construction, Odling-Smee, Laland, and Feldman develop the idea of ecosystem engineering and other forms of ecological inheritance (mirroring genetic inheritance) further and catalog hundreds of non-human examples, e.g. social insects building nests, leaf-cutter ants essentially carrying out agriculture, photosyntisizing bacteria that led to our current 21% concentration of atmospheric O2, plants that engage in allelopathy (poisoning their competitors), spiders building webs, etc. The subjecgt is rich and I might try writing something once I finish the book.

Level of Content

What sort of an audience does this article target? It ranges from moderately complex discussions to theory to statements like: Honeybees concentrate the sugar still further as honey, which can be said to be "stored summer sunshine" (a statements that is (a) true for any storage product which has its origin in photosynthesis, and (b) shows a Temperate Zone bias). Guettarda 23:48, 21 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I'd say the article aims at a rather general audience, essentially meaning to draw ecology in big lines and provides multiplicity of relevant links. Just rewrite a bit the sentence and it shall be just fine :-) SweetLittleFluffyThing

Metaphysics

A link was added recently to a largely metaphysical essay. My instinct is that this is not appropriate here, but I realise that the "popular" usage is far broader than hard scientific usage (e.g., I would never have included Human ecology if I had written the article, since I see it as a different field with a similar name, but I realise that it is a valid part of this article). Given my own view of ecology I don't think this fits, but I realise that my view is coloured by my own POV. Thanks Guettarda 17:15, 11 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ecological factor, abiotic, biotic & wikilinks

I trust I've not been too bold to eliminate three stub articles by merging them together into this article. It seemed that the information in this article on ecological factors was already greater than that found in any of the 3 stub articles so it made sense to me to conduct this merger. This has left two levels of redirects that I need to deal with by doing wikilink changes on the pointing pages. I will take care of those modifications in due time. Regards, Courtland 14:40, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC).

I'm not sure if I would favour changes which lengthened the article - this article is too long and in major need to revision/clean-up, rationalised sub-articles, etc. But that's neither here nor there. What I do wonder about is the inclusion of the stamps - that would be a better image for an article about environmental conservation, or better, the environmental movement, don't you think? Ecology as a science is (should be) value-neutral on environmental issues. Guettarda 22:09, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Stamps? What does that have to do with the topic I was speaking on? The information I brought in lengthened the article by about 10 visible lines and 9 hidden lines (see http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ecology&diff=10862341&oldid=10862307 whic shows the introduction of visible lines). Courtland 23:15, 2005 Mar 6 (UTC)

Um, ok, let me re-phrase. I don't have a problem with your changes - I have a general concern about the length of the article, but this addition to the length is minor. Mis-read the history - I thought that the image was inserted by you as well, which is why I mentioned it in the same reply, making it a general comment on the today's changes. No need to be so aggressive in your reply though.
To address your question about incorporating these other articles, my response is, no problem with that.
- Thanks; I understand. I didn't mean to be aggressive, but I see how it could be interpreted as such (there's that "90% of communication is body language and inflection" problem once more :) ). What I probably should have used was something more along the lines of "hmm, I'm not sure what you mean about the stamps." Courtland 02:16, 2005 Mar 7 (UTC)
I am curious why "salinity" links to "salinity in Australia". It strikes me as odd, but then so does the line Salinity in Australian English may refer to salt in soil (see Salinity in Australia). in the Salinity article. It's certainly not a uniquely Australian phenomenon, although the salinisation of the Wheatbelt in Western Australia is one of the more remarkable examples. But I suppose that is more a comment on the articles in wikipedia than on your link - best of a bad lot, I suppose. Guettarda 23:54, 6 Mar 2005 (UTC)
- (chuckles) that struck me as really odd too, but I didn't take the time to untie that particular knot. I used what I got served when I went looking. Courtland 02:16, 2005 Mar 7 (UTC)

Article Organization

The article is really almost a mess, just because it is trying to do too much on one page. "Ecology" (the article) cannot attempt to cover all of the subject matter included in "Ecology" (the science). I suggest a couple of things: 1) move much of the material off to other articles; 2) join me at Wikibooks in developing a textbook if "ecology" is your passion. Remember, ecology is not everything that happens on earth or in nature; it is just a subject of study - Marshman 04:43, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your suggestions as to how to better organize the article would be welcome. Courtland 06:04, 2005 Mar 11 (UTC)

Thanks. I'll start to look at it it terms of structure. Ecology is a difficult subject because it is so encompassing and therefore seemingly unbounded. - Marshman 17:05, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC) / I'm doing this in short reorganization steps so as to not make it too difficult for other to zoom in on a particular change they may not be happy about. I've not really eliminated much at this point, just moved some things around to make a more coherent presentation. - Marshman 23:33, 11 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite Proposals

I think the "History of Ecology" is plenty long and detailed enough to justify a separate page History of Ecology. Anybody agree/disagree? This alone would bring the article close to manageable size, I think - Marshman 02:55, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC). Having seen no complaints, I will make this move shortly. The History subsection is well thought out and pretty complete, so I see no problem with the new article being a stub - Marshman 17:41, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I support the move (albeit a little late). Guettarda 23:44, 13 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Never too late. But I have not moved anything yet 8^) - Marshman

The "Disciplines of Ecology" is little more than a long list. I wonder if it might not be worth spinning that off to its own page (while leaving the basic outline of subdisciplines where it is). As it stands, it breaks the article, reduces the readability. Anyone opposed? Guettarda 22:40, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I would agree with the negatives you cite. And your solution is a good one. At some point it could be written out or expanded, but that could as easily be done on another page as here. - Marshman 23:11, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I lean towards a separate page because expanding and organising that section would make it rather longer than it is now. As it stands, I think it breaks up the flow of the article - most people would rather know more about "what ecology is". Explaining the hierarchy of study in ecology is useful, but I think that the list of sub-disciplines is distracting where it stands. While one could just move it down the page, I think it would fit better as a link from where it now sits. I'll give it a day or so to let people object, and if no one does then I'll move it. Guettarda 00:03, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Do not misunderstand, I agree with you completely. If it were only a paragraph long, its place would not be so interruptive of the text. It does best to be near the top of this article, but should just be linked out from there. You may have noticed that I moved the link for "History of Ecology" towards the top (history is good to get out of the way early as understanding principles depends upon understanding how the principles were "founded"), but I also moved all of the history text out. I think the same should be done for "Disciplines" - Marshman 02:19, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Ok, done. Guettarda 21:59, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Definition of Ecology

I am no expert; I found this page while looking for a precise definition.

Googling "define: ecology" [1] (http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+ecology) produces definitions from about 25 sources. The first 24 are very similar: essentially, the study of the interactions/relationships between organisms/living things and their environments. Then the wikipedia definition, which says "Ecology is the branch of science that studies the distribution and abundance of living organisms, and the interactions between organisms and their environment." The "distribution and abundance" part seems questionable at best, while the statement makes the precise definition seem secondary.

The two entries at the top under "Ecology can mean either:" also seem problematic. The first makes ecology a synonym for environment; the second is circular as well as wrong; it says its "an analysis or study using..." - implying that "I did an ecology" would be correct usage.

Finally, I think the definition should come before the history/etymology of the word itself, at the beginning.

Population ecology and behavioural ecology deal with the distribution and abundance within species. Community ecology deals with the distribution and abundance of individuals among species. The "organisms and their environment" def. is widely used, but it is not complete. The most basic population models ignore the environment and other species entirely. This definition is better. (And, ~~with a PhD in ecology~~ based on my experience I think I can call myself something of an "expert";)). Guettarda 16:50, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I disagree with your assessment of the split definition at the very top, although possibly the circular argument needs to be fixed. Most people do use the term ecology to mean "environment" and it is necessary to make it clear up front that if that is your thing, then go work on other pages; this one is about the study of the interactions between species and their environment. Actually, the phrase "I did ecology" would be correct and proper English, as would "I did an ecology project". It was your sentence structure that made it seem awkward. Also, while the definition here is perhaps longer than it need be (see the Ecology textbook at Wikibooks for my preferred definition), there really is nothing wrong with it. As Guettarda is pointing out, abundance and distribution of organisms are in the forefront of what many ecologists study. So the inclusion in the definition simply expands it a bit, rather than limiting it in any way. I'm an ecologist within lots of graduate level work in my past but not the shingle. I'll review the problems you uncovered and see if we cannot tweak thinks to reduce any confusion. - Marshman 17:51, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Mgrapes that the beginning of the article needs work, but (in agreement with Guettarda and Marhman) I think the definition hidden in there is just fine. I would at the very lest replace the circular second bullet with an actual definition. Although I would prefer the first usage be done as a dablink like the journal.

As far as the actual definition goes, my personal definition (ala Krebs' Ecology textbook), instead of the study of distribution and abundance AND the study of interactions, is the study of how interactions affect distribution and abundance. It is a subtle difference, but I like it. Anyway, here is my vision: User:Jmeppley/Sandbox/Ecology. Jmeppley 18:28, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I think your defintion is subtly different and better. I looked at the problem: ...the second is circular as well as wrong; it says its "an analysis or study using..." and must point out that the top "split" is not giving actual definitions of the term, but indicating two ways the word is used. Therefore, I see nothing wrong in the way this is worded. - Marshman 18:31, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I think that how interactions affect distribution and abundance is too narrow - it leaves out simple population growth models (which do not deal with interactions) and it leaves of a lot on the ecosystem ecology end of the field (which reduce all living things to "green gunk"). Guettarda 18:36, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I could easily go along with the changes suggested by Jmeppley. They do reduce confusion. We can always expand things a bit after the initial statement to be sure the points by Guettarda are covered. I suggest wee apply the Jmeppley change, and then tweak the wording with a sentence or two. - Marshman 18:42, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Ok, I agree with Marshman. Guettarda

I'll go ahead and make this change and we can hash out the exact wording of the definition (and any clarifying statements) on the live page. I'll also throw in 2 responses and a concession for G. I'd say that while there are models that don't deal with interactions explicitly, most do so implicitly. (The logistic model assumes density dependent growth rate). Also I think the very simple models are useful to ecologists because deviations from them point to important ecological factors (including interactions) that must be considered. On the other hand I've only been in the field for a couple years and I come from a complex systems background where it is ALL about interactions, so my point of view may be more skewed than I am aware. Jmeppley

I realise that most models have implicit interactions, but the simplest models are simply <math>dN/dt = No + (b-d)<math> or something of the sort. You start of teaching undergrads that, then you introduce K. Reaction-diffusion models in invasion modelling tend to ignore interactions as well, as does the Levins metapopulation model. But maybe listing exceptions proves the rule :)

On your change, interactions among all the elements of an environment - I can't say I'm totally happy with the word "environment" (although it is technically accurate), and I don't know if I like the word "all" elements - in the interest of sanity I would never want to look at all the elements (it feels to me like it could be interpreted that in order to be an ecological study it must look at all the elements - but maybe I am just being a pedant). Guettarda 20:55, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I'm not happy with that part of the definition either. I started with "Ecology is the study of how interactions between organisms and their environment affect the distribution and abundance of living organisms." I switched "between" to "among" to give a sense of the complexity of things (personal bias, maybe). And I wasn't happy with "organism" in there twice, so I tried to re-word it, but I don't know if it's an improvement. The word "all" is definitely unnecessary. Maybe replace "living organisms" with "life" or "populations" instead? Jmeppley

I like the last version except...you went back to "between". Isn't "among" still the better word? Guettarda 23:36, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I agree, but gramatically speaking, since there are two objects (the organism, its environment), I think it might have to be "between". (between two things, among many things). We might be able to get away with "among" since "environment" implies all sorts of things, but usually in grammar rules collective nouns are singular. I was unsure, so I left the original wording. Jmeppley 00:21, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Actually I was thinking about it as "among organisms". Guettarda 18:30, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

Natural environment

I have removed Ecology is sometimes used as a synonym for the natural environment.
Ecology is the study of what lies within the natural environment. Alan Liefting 10:18, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

But people use the word to mean the natural environment. Non-scientists do all the time. While we shouldn't cater towrds ignorance, we should provide navigational aids to those end up here by mistake. Guettarda 15:22, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I take your point but do not agree with it. I am not sure what level of ignorance to which Wikipedaia should be catering. I have qualified the statement for clarification to those who confuse the two. Alan Liefting 20:55, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I agree with Alan. Anthere

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