Talk:Antarctic krill

Early text
Do you suppose we could get a smaller picture of this krill? Then it'd be much easier to put the text side-by-side with it so the reader can see it all at the same time. Or I could just shrink it and put it in, if need be. -- John Owens 16:03 Apr 7, 2003 (UTC)

--- hallo John,

yes, just shrink it by half

uwe

- i did it and will try to upload it

uwe

uploaded it in half size uwe

Untitled
after much discussion I want to re-enter this article. All objections and suggestions and language have been worked on, references added, some images moved to other places. An academic group from Australia, USA, Germany, Japan and Norway found no errors. Thanks go especially to user:lupo, User:Yakuzai and in Scandinavia to User:Salleman. The article covers the basic biology, ecology, geography, fisheries and some unique bio-features of this key species of Antarctica, which is probably (in terms of biomass) the most successfull animal of the planet, and gives an outlook for future ventures of Ocean Engineering. Uwe Kils  21:57, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)

POV?
Is the statement
 * In the North Atlantic, Meganyctiphanes norvegica and in the Pacific, Euphausia pacifica are important krill species.

specifically the word "important", not POV? -- Timwi 15:34, 15 Feb 2004 (UTC)


 * If a qualification is added, then it can conform. For instance, "...are important krill species to the food chain..." or some such. --jonasaurus 21:40, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

I think is this is remaining a themetic issue with this page oevrall. I understand that the major editors are likely Antarctic krill researchers, but this reads very fan-ish. "OMG Krill are awesome!!1!". Perhaps it could be toned down ever so slightly. All the information is great though!!

Emotive language should be avoided as much as possible. It can reduce the quality/appeal of writing, but this is an encyclopedia.

Examples:
 * "E. superba [is] the most successful animal species on the planet." - This has absolutely no citation. It is a conclusion drawn from referenced material. See WP:SYNTH


 * "There are concerns that the overall biomass of Antarctic krill has been declining rapidly over the last few decades. Some scientists have speculated this value being as high as 80%. " - WP:WEASEL. Who is concerned? "Some" scientists, which ones, which ones aren't, and why not?


 * "Krill is the key player in this process [carbon sequestration], collecting the minute plankton cells which fix carbon dioxide and converting the substance to rapidly-sinking carbon in the form of spit balls and fecal strings." -- again WP:SYNTH, the source doesn't specifically say that krill has any role in sequestrating the carbon (though I can understand how it would) - and certainly doesn't highlight krill as "THE key player" in this process.

--ZayZayEM (talk) 00:26, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Vote: move
This page is de facto about Antarctic Krill rather than krill in general. I updated the intro paragraph, but I propose to move this article to Antarctic krill and have krill redirect to either Euphausiid or krill (disambiguation). Quick vote:


 * Yes, move the page. One-dimensional Tangent (Talk) 01:54, 20 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Yes, but move it to Antarctic Krill (note capitalization). - UtherSRG 03:04, May 20, 2005 (UTC)
 * Move to Antarctic K/krill, and move Krill (disambiguation to Krill. sjorford &rarr;&bull;&larr; 11:48, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

Hard to understand
Really like what you have done with the article, i think it could be really good but i have difficulty understanding some of it. As a native English speaker i found some of the grammar quite poor which made some of the content unintelligable. Also the choice and the way you word the sentences has made it difficult for me to understand what is being conveyed. I have made some minor edits to some of the wording but i still think it needs a bit of work. Again i think this is a good article but with better elucidation and grammar it could be a fantastic article. Yakuzai 21:14, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * hallo Yakuzai! thank you for your comment. Please help us and change bad language. I am German and know my English is rotten - take care Uwe Kils 21:20, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

Hi Kils. Have read through your article more thoroughly and have done some further editing. Will go through it systematically over the next week or two, really want this to be a featured article! Here are some initial thoughts on the introduction:

1. The bit about the step between prey and predator is hard to understand maybe you could write this up more thouroughly in the ecosystem section and erase it from introduction.

2. In the section Systematic are you trying to give an account of what distinguishes the Antartic Krill from others of the same order? If so i Think you need to state that and also have a link for the meaning of carapax and gnathapod. Peolple who don't have knowledge of technical terms like these will find it hard to understand this section. I made an edit of this section myself but i need to clarify whether you are trying to say that the visibility of the gills is due to the thoracomers on each side of the carapax being so short? Also whether the visibility of the gills is another distinguishing feature of this order? updated by 193.115.13.66 12:01, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hopefully this is helpful for you. Yakuzai 22:45, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * thank you, Yakuzai, I will work on it Uwe Kils 23:27, Jun 12, 2005 (UTC)

The article needs to be restructured. I suggest reducing the number of top-level sections by grouping most of current sections under "Biology" and "Ecology". I believe the re-sorting would also make the text flow more naturally. Another thing, which would be helpful for editors and readers alike, would be short explanations of specialized terms in 's, when those are first used (especially for those that are now red links). Zocky 20:51, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The filter-feeding movie
I've gone ahead and implemented my own suggestion: replacing the movie with a still image plus a link to the full movie. I hope you can live with that, but having the full animation inline made editing very tedious for me due to the long load time, and I also find animations distracting when I want to read the text.

The caption says "slow motion" at 300 frames/sec. The GIF contains 10 frames, each displaying for 40 ms. That is, it replays 25 frames/sec. Why not say "slowed down by a factor of 12"? Lupo 14:39, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The eye
Some ideas on how to expand that section: How large is the eye? What's the size of the individual components (or whatever they're called)? How many of them are there? Is its light sensitivity known? Do rely krill on their vision much?`Is that known at all? or do they start their escape reaction based on sensing changes in the microcurrents around them? Lupo 15:48, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Small points
Just a few small points that are causing me a few problems when i read this article, they are,

1: the prose in the section "Position in Antartic Ecosystem" is quite awkward, i think maybe this could be worded better and grammar improved.

2: The overall feel that the article sometimes reads as though it is about Krill in general as oppose to Antartic Krill specifically.

3: I am in agreement with Lupo that the section on the compound eye should be expanded, as at the moment it just seems like an after thought that has been tagged on to fill up space.

Other than that i think evereyone involved has done a fantastic job! Yakuzai 21:33, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

thank you everybody
I would like to express my thanks to everybody helping in the nomination. I think 3 1/2 supports and a long long discussion are an unexpected and great outcome for a critter so remote and unknown - you should see how little and poor Antarctic krill is represented in Encarta and Britannica - this is the best reviewed and resourced general article of krill we know of - it is impossible to fullfill all wishes at the same time - this is what we did with our all product peer review stamp to qualify this stage of the article for academic exercises, especially for our dreams of a Virtual university within Wikiversity - good luck to you all Uwe Kils 21:48, Jun 14, 2005 (UTC)

Vertical migration
Northern krill seems to move down during the day and up again at night (see ). Is this a behavior common to all krill? If yes, I think this should be added to the article on krill in general. (That article, BTW, needs expansion!) In no, does the Antarctic krill also show this behavior? If so, what is known about the causes? Is it just that their food sinks and rises, or are there other factors? Lupo 07:27, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * yes, they also do that Uwe Kils 12:12, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

The MarineBio page
at looks like a good source. Has a description that is probably more accessible to laypeople, and some facts we might add. Three points:
 * good idea to do that Uwe Kils 12:12, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * The image they have seems to be essentially the same as our top image. Theirs looks a bit sharper; did they post-process it? Also, they say © Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research!
 * I gave them the image for their sci and edu collection, not the copyright (I worked there as a Heisenberg Fellow for a while). If people ask the AWI for the krill image they charge high royalties (and the new administration about always forgets to share them with me), at Wikipedia everybody gets it free since 16:58, Apr 1, 2003. I took this quantitative sci picture long before the AWI was founded. You can contact Gotthilf Hempel about the copyright or visit me and I show you my original 60 mm film (I pick you up at the airport, than we can talk wiki). This picture and the revenue from it and the Maier Leinitz Prize upon it helped raise the political motion for hatching the AWI and instrumentation for the in situ images and videos (developed at the ATOLL laboratory). We are the only ones in the world with such high res in situ material, invited all over the world to talk about it. The high resolution image you can view via my ecoSCOPE.com server. This image was the first critter on the web ever, hatching from the first NeXT in Kiel University.
 * Hey, I wasn't questioning your copyright. I rather had the impression that their attribution was wrong! Lupo 13:09, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I ask them occasionaly to take the C sign out of the image (some overeager administrator put it there) and link the image to the virtual microscope, but they are slow (and in the small group of Antarctic scientists all over the world we are all friends) - and who cares?


 * They say swarms can be as dense as 10,000 individuals per m³; our article claims 20,000. Which number is correct, and what's the source for our number?
 * lets write 10 000 to 30 000 - there is a lot of discussion and just about no knowledge about the issue, that is not so easy to measure Uwe Kils 12:12, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * They say that Poland and Ukraine are active in krill fishery, too.
 * would be nice if you would add itUwe Kils 12:12, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

Lupo 08:17, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Things to move over to krill
I agree with Yakuzai that some sections are probably better moved over to krill. In particular, I have the impression that the "Fisheries" and "Future visions of ocean engineering" sections should go there. Lupo 08:44, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * no, this is only about E. superba Uwe Kils 12:12, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)

image request
As requested I uploaded a translated graph Image:Krillanatomykils.jpg (by Kils & Klages)



(It was available as gfdl all the time on the wikisource links, where i put some of our publications with full res images, just click on the names in the refs - nobody aparently noticed that (thats the way we work: short articles with lots of attached original material for in depth readings) Uwe Kils 12:12, Jun 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * Thanks a lot! (Hmmm... I had been visiting the Wikisource pages, but also the pages on your own site. Must have missed that one.) Lupo 13:12, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Very intelligable. Nicely done! El_C

response from London
Uwe wants to share this with you (from his talk page):

Hello Kils
Just would like to state that i have very much enjoyed being involved in a project of this nature. To see the speed of co-operation between various people was (Uwe, Lupo and Salleman and all others) fantastic. It was a complete buzz to go off researching about a scientific subject and coming to some understanding and appreciation of a creature that i would have no knowledge or interest in otherwise. I would like to say that it takes a damn good teacher to get others interested in what they teach and i for one, if only in a rudimentary and general way have found the subject of Krill and sorrounding issues of ecology and environment fascinating. I think that says a lot about your willingness to let others participate in something which you obviously have great knowledge in and could easily have been a lot less humble with. At some point i will put up some informtion on my home page so at least people know a little more about me. Am going to try to extend the article on Ice-algae so any info you may have would be good. I hope the article on Antartic Krill gets featured as i think it is now very good.

Wikiversity sounds like a good idea but will need more time to go through the proposal (not too sure what help i could be).

Once again thanks Uwe! Yakuzai 22:50, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

that feels good

Uwe Kils  03:25, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

Biomass
Just looked over the expanded biomass section and have made some edits but their are a few sentences that i think need clarifying.

"The total non-krill yield from all world fisheries is about 100 million tonnes per year whilst estimates of annual Antarctic krill production are between 13 million to several billion tonnes per year".

1. By "Antarctic Krill production" do you mean the annual yield of antarctic krill from fisheries?


 * no, it is the growth of biomass over a year - amazingly high, isn't it - what I read over my life about krill and our in situ imaging of schools my personal oppinion is that the biomass numbers are even an underestimation. Uwe Kils  [[Image:heringmini.jpg]] 20:10, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

If this is not the case then is the above comparison valid?

2. "Several billion tonnes per year" would seem to contradict the opening paragraph's claim of a total biomass of 500 million tonnes.

"Thus primary production falls within 1 -2 g carbon per square meter, this however is not a very high concentration if compared to the 30 - 50 g carbon per square meter close to the ice. but the area is just enormous, and in the summer there are many hours of daylight".

3. I think these last few sentences need work, wish i could be more specific.

Yakuzai 19:32, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Uwe and I improved point 3, at least; do you like it better now, Yakuzai? &mdash; Catherine\talk 05:55, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Further request
I like the article and the improvements, but I am a perfectionist, so I'll offer what advice I can, because my knowledge in the subject is zero and that perspective may be helpful. It came to me that I don't know what if any of the features in this article are unique to Antarctic Krill or whether all krill display such behaviors/abilities. Such as filter feeding; I assume all krill, but then why so much focus on that in this article and not in krill? - Taxman Talk 19:25, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)
 * thank you for your comment - most is specific to Antarctic krill. Some we moved over to krill and other articles, like filter feeding. No other krill has such an amazing fine/large filter and is so big. Fisheries is also about Antarctic krill. Also on the other species is not so much knowledge (to my knowledge), but we hope with this project that other scientists will add more of their works soon (I asked some already, but most are still sceptical, say too few Wikipedia editors work under a real identity - time will change that, I am sure) Uwe Kils  [[Image:heringmini.jpg]] 19:52, Jun 23, 2005 (UTC)

Anyone else get a lot of whitespace in this article?
Maybe I have a high screen res, but I am seeing a lot of blank space between sections in this article. Presumably it is there to stop pictures overlapping. Is there anything we can do about this? Pcb21| Pete 29 June 2005 09:55 (UTC)
 * Hallo Pete! you could use a larger font, or make the window a little smaller or use the mono block skin - we were asked to put in longer captions - I sent the article out to some more krill experts in Norway, California, Germany and Australia and will eventually add more text. By the way: I like your contributions especially about the whales very much! Best regards Uwe Kils  [[Image:heringmini.jpg]] June 29, 2005 11:56 (UTC)

Language issues
I am quite impressed with this article and firmly believe that it deserves featured status. However, I was somewhat disappointed to discover some rather elementry grammatical faults within the article, after it was featured on the main page, no less (present perfect/preterite, definite article). Before attaining featured status, an article needs to have absolutely no stylistic or grammatical issues. We need to catch these things during the peer review stage, at the latest during the fac stage. Catching them after they're on the main page is way too late. Note that I'm being critical (not scathing :) )of the fac people, not the article's author, whose first language is not, if I recall, English. --Zantastik talk  11:35, 17 July 2005 (UTC)
 * It's possible we missed this... any assistance with copyediting is always appreciated! - Ta bu shi da yu 04:53, 18 July 2005 (UTC)

Fisheries
Forgive me, I am ignorant of such matters, but these things look like prawns to me. Since people eat them, what does it look like on my dinner plate? They are so small. Is it like a mash? Or little prawns? How is it served in Japan anyhow? Not very scientific I know, but I am sure that some other laymen reading this article will have the same thought, perhaps we could add this. Commking 19 July 2005

Featured on Biology Portal
Congratulations! This article is the current Featured article on the Biology Portal. If you would like to help with the Biology Portal the best place to start is the portal talk page. --Cyde Weys votetalk 23:04, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

FA Tag
I added a second FA tag to the article. The one at the bottom did not seem to create the star icon at the top right corner. Adding the tag to the top of the article made the icon show up. Not sure why.. I have the question in to the Template Talk. Morphh 01:02, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

HNLC
The parenthesis following HNLC in the article state that HNLC means high nutrients low carbon, whilst the actual HNLC article states that HNLC is an acronym for high nutrient low chyllorophll

should this be corrected? Jk5004 06:19, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Biomass
On the matter of biomass, rough calculations show that if there are 6 billion humans on the planet at 150 pounds each, we have essentially the same biomass as krill (450 billion tons). —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 198.85.231.54 (talk) 06:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC).

I find it hard to believe that 150 would be the average weight for ALL humans. That's an awful lot of kids you're gonna have in there, you know. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.138.236.178 (talk) 19:05, 4 June 2008 (UTC)


 * XKCD (sourced) gives humanity's total mass at some 400 million tons, even among the current 7 billion. Cattle seem to be more abundant than krill, some 600-700 million tons (I haven't actually counted the squares, but guesstimating them.)--Roentgenium111 (talk) 21:55, 1 April 2014 (UTC)

Wikisource links
Note: some of the wikisource links (many of which are included in the references) appear to be broken. Apparently they were moved to de.wikisource.org, but after extensive searching, I can't find anything. Perhaps a non-wikisource version of the texts would be good. Grace notes T § 20:05, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

Krill Weight error, please fix
The introductory paragraph says krill can weigh up to "2 g (0.7 oz)." 2grams is actually 0.07 oz, not 0.7 oz. I wasn't sure if the statement should say they weight up to 0.07 oz, or up to 20 grams. Can someone who knows the answer fix this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.167.198.14 (talk) 14:01, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

2 g is ok user:kils

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Keystone species
The article says krill are a keystone species, while the keystone species article defines the term as having a larger role to play in the ecosystem than would be expected based on biomass. It seems, by definition, krill cannot be a keystone species. 2601:601:1800:5DC0:1875:973C:A3DA:2754 (talk) 16:28, 19 July 2023 (UTC)


 * Antarctic krill notes that: "The biomass of Antarctic krill was estimated in 2009 to be 0.05 gigatons of carbon (Gt C), similar to the total biomass of humans (0.06 Gt C)." --Fama Clamosa (talk) 17:10, 19 July 2023 (UTC)