Talk:Ecosystem

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 22 January 2019 and 24 May 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Billyroberson.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:27, 17 January 2022 (UTC) Cell (biology) From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigationJump to search Not to be confused with Cell biology. Cell Wilson1900Fig2.jpg Onion (Allium cepa) root cells in different phases of the cell cycle (drawn by E. B. Wilson, 1900) Celltypes.svg A eukaryotic cell (left) and prokaryotic cell (right) Identifiers MeSH	D002477 TH	H1.00.01.0.00001 FMA	686465 Anatomical terminology [edit on Wikidata] The cell (from Latin word 'cellula' meaning "small room"[1]) is the basic structural and functional unit of life. Every cell consists of a cytoplasm enclosed within a membrane, which contains many biomolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids.[2]

Most plant and animal cells are only visible under a light microscope, with dimensions between 1 and 100 micrometres.[3] Electron microscopy gives a much higher resolution showing greatly detailed cell structure. Organisms can be classified as unicellular (consisting of a single cell such as bacteria) or multicellular (including plants and animals).[4] Most unicellular organisms are classed as microorganisms. The number of cells in plants and animals varies from species to species; it has been approximated that the human body contains roughly 40 trillion (4×1013) cells.[a][5] The brain accounts for around 80 billion of these cells.[6]

Cell biology is the study of cells, which were discovered by Robert Hooke in 1665, who named them for their resemblance to cells inhabited by Christian monks in a monastery.[7][8] Cell theory, first developed in 1839 by Matthias Jakob Schleiden and Theodor Schwann, states that all organisms are composed of one or more cells, that cells are the fundamental unit of structure and function in all living organisms, and that all cells come from pre-existing cells.[9] Cells emerged on Earth about 4 billion years ago.[10][11][12][13] — Preceding unsigned comment added by Poornima B 12 (talk • contribs) 09:37, 9 February 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 7 January 2019 and 9 April 2019. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Schneidl12.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:08, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Improving Readability of the lead
Let's consider moving some of the detail from the lead. The last few sentences of the last and the second to the last paragraph both offer too much detail for an overview. It's interesting stuff, but without an opportunity to fully explain things I believe readers will get discouraged. Right now the lead readability is a 33. Not good. Removing longer sentences with long words can only help that too.PlanetCare (talk) 23:25, 20 March 2018 (UTC)


 * just deleted a few of detail-oriented sentences. Raised the score to (drumroll) 35. More work needed to simplify some of the sentences.PlanetCare (talk) 02:14, 21 March 2018 (UTC)
 * made some further simplifications but didn't get the readability socre to higher than 35.EMsmile (talk) 13:00, 30 March 2018 (UTC)

That re-write of the lead was not good.

Not true.

One of at least two sentence fragments If you look at the ORES score, we went from an article that resembled an FA to one that fluctuates between B and C. Guettarda (talk) 22:31, 18 December 2018 (UTC)

This is also incorrect. A community is not made up of living organisms and non-living components. Guettarda (talk) 22:37, 18 December 2018 (UTC)


 * Coming back to this exchange from December 2018. Where do we stand on this now? The first sentence says: "An ecosystem is a community of living organisms in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment, interacting as a system." Correct or not correct? As a reference for this statement we have this "Tansley (1934); Molles (1999), p. 482; Chapin et al. (2002), p. 380; Schulze et al. (2005); p. 400; Gurevitch et al. (2006), p. 522; Smith & Smith 2012, p. G-5". To me that is a little odd. Sure, those books are provided in the section "literature cited" but it is really necessary to provide six references for this? Would one "authoritative" reference be sufficient? In fact, since the lead is supposed to be a summary of the article, then where in the article is this definition explained? We don't have a heading for "definition" or "terminology" - should we have one? We currently have one called "Origin and use of the term" where this could perhaps be included (although User:Guettarda you would prefer this section to be called "history"?). EMsmile (talk) 01:19, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 October 2018
Ecostyms 188.123.231.88 (talk) 17:28, 8 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Red question icon with gradient background.svg Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate.  ♪♫Al ucard   16♫♪  17:55, 8 October 2018 (UTC)

Lead image caption
The lead image caption used "ecosystem" is a way that is inconsistent with the article and the scholarly literature.

The caption is using ecosystem as a synonym for biome, which is confusing given the content of the article. It also uses Hatcher (1990) to support what it says. Problem is that Hatcher uses "ecosystem" to mean "ecosystem", not biome. So this is doubly misleading. Guettarda (talk) 12:21, 19 December 2018 (UTC)
 * , if I am not mistaken your comment from December 2018 has been addressed, right? The caption in the lead image says "Left: Coral reef ecosystems are highly productive marine systems. Right: Temperate rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington state." Do you (and others) agree with that caption? EMsmile (talk) 01:21, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Mispelling - "ecoystem"
"Ecosystem" is misspelled under the Dynamics section: "When a perturbation occurs, an ecoystem responds by moving away from its initial state."
 * Is corrected now. EMsmile (talk) 13:49, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Spelling
It's is used incorrectly in the 'Dymanics' paragraph. It should be its. VWScully (talk) 17:55, 10 May 2020 (UTC)
 * Seems to have been corrected by now.EMsmile (talk) 13:48, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Limiting Error in scope of ecosystem by disregarding chemosynthesis in introduction.
"Energy enters the system through photosynthesis and is incorporated into plant tissue. By feeding on plants and on one another, animals play an important role in the movement of matter and energy through the system."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemosynthesis#:~:text=In%20biochemistry%2C%20chemosynthesis%20is%20the,energy%2C%20rather%20than%20sunlight%2C%20as

pretty lazy imo — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.48.108 (talk) 03:08, 5 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Can anyone make sense of this comment? Is there anything we ought to change? EMsmile (talk) 01:22, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Who says that "history" has to come first?
Hi User:Guettarda, I saw your edit where you had reverted my edit to move history to later. In the edit summary you wrote: "starting with a history section is standard for articles like this. whether the usual layout of articles is good or bad is a question for to be settled at a much higher level than individual pages". Who says it's "standard"? Where is that standard prescribed? I am following the Manual of Style of the hugely successful WikiProject Medicine which has moved history towards the end for all the medicine related articles. For good reason, I think. See here (and we did the same for WikiProject Sanitation as well, see here). I think if users are searching for historical information they would be putting in the search field "history of". E.g. "history of water supply and sanitation". So why should history come first, directly after the lead? When you look at the leads themselves, they don't start with history, usually. They are meant to be a good summary of the article but historical aspects are not usually the main focus of any such article from the scientific fields. Terminology can come early, yes, but not history. For this article here, we could actually just rename it back to "Terminology" in that case. Might be better. But overall, I would be happy to "settle at a much higher level than individual pages". Where do you want me to take this to? Which WikiProject, or where else? EMsmile (talk) 14:49, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * And I've just looked at these related articles and found there is no "standard" about what the heading is called and where in the article it appears: Biosphere > Biome > Ecosystem > Biocenosis > Population > Organism > Organ system > Organ > Tissue > Cell > Organelle > Biomolecular complex > Macromolecule > Biomolecule. I saw some of the other articles use the section heading "Origin and use of the term" which I think is clearer than "history"; so it's more of a "definition" section in which case it's alright to be at the start. But a purely "historical" section I would always put towards the end, and that's how I've seen it done for many articles.  EMsmile (talk) 14:59, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * As I'm sure you're aware, the GA nomination failed because of the lack of detail in the history section. I'm not sure how making sure there is even less of a history section improves this article in that regard. Guettarda (talk) 15:23, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * And FWIW, both of the most closely-related FAs have history sections at the top of the article: Evolution and Genetics. And as far as I know, so do other FAs about broad scientific concepts. Guettarda (talk) 15:27, 26 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Three years ago you separated statements from their sources, creating several unsourced statements. At the time, I tagged them and asked you to fix them, and walked away from the article because I was trying to minimise conflict. In all that time, you could never be bothered to fix the mess you made. So yeah, I'm less collegial than I really should be. Guettarda (talk) 22:30, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

please avoid using abbriviations, I cant follow your argumentation because of that. PS: very tense tone in here, thats unnecessary. Nsae Comp (talk) 05:08, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

I would use "concept" instead of "term", since its not about the etymology, as it stands at the moment. How about "Conceptual history" or just "Concept"? Nsae Comp (talk) 05:14, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

...or "Conceptual development" Nsae Comp (talk) 05:16, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Could argue that "Origin and use of the term" is plainer English. I agree that section should be at the top of the body of text as it gives the basic definition. Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 21:57, 27 March 2021 (UTC)

See also sections
In general, most articles listed should be mentioned in a sentence or two within the body of the text (if they are integral enough to the topic), or removed (if pretty tangential). It would be a good idea to do here e.g. Novel ecosystem and biosphere for starters...? Cas Liber (talk · contribs) 22:11, 27 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Hi Cas Liber, I agree with you. Please go ahead with your ideas for this. EMsmile (talk) 11:55, 28 March 2021 (UTC)

Revisiting the question about "types"
I would like to revisit some issues that were raised in 2018 but not fully resolved (please scroll up to see what I mean). For example the issue of "types". Would it be sensible to have a section on "types of ecosystems"? This is not my area of expertise but I notice that we have a Wikipedia article on terrestrial ecosystem which starts with "A terrestrial ecosystem is a type of ecosystem found only on land forms. Six primary terrestrial ecosystems exist: tundra, taiga, temperate deciduous forest, tropical rain forest, grassland, deserts." We also have an article on Aquatic ecosystem. It says: "An aquatic ecosystem is an ecosystem in a body of water." If those definitions are true then shouldn't this overview article on ecosystem explain the different types? If those definitions are not right or misleading then those two sub-articles ought to be changed. In March 2018, User:Guettarda wrote: These are biomes, not ecosystems. The fact that the term ecosystem is often used very imprecisely doesn't mean we need to follow that convention here. Sure, add a section distinguishing processes in terrestrial and aquatic systems. But not here. So where does that leave us? What do people suggest? EMsmile (talk) 01:12, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * As there was no answer I have now come up with my own solution, I think it should work: I have called the new section "Examples" where I have listed a bunch of Wikipedia articles that talk about different ecosystems (similar to the bullet point listing that we have at coast). I think this could work to give people a bit of an overview what's out there; remembering that this is a high level overview article that should point people in the right directions for further reading. EMsmile (talk) 13:01, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Coming back to the Good Article Review from nine years ago
The Good Article Review from nine years ago in 2012 was mentioned recently on the talk page. This is the review here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Ecosystem/GA1 It was done by User:Stigmatella aurantiaca. Sadly nobody had time back then to follow up on it (I don't know who had started the Good Article nomination). These were the recommendations at the time: +++++++ I've spent the past few days skimming the materials that I got from the university library. Mostly I focused on Chapin et al. 2011, since I saw that the 2002 edition of their textbook was a major resource for you. But I also read through the Christensen et al. report and skimmed through other textbooks not on your list.

Being an old fogey, I'm rather amazed at the paradigm shifts that have occurred even in such things as the old succession concept that I learned 40+ years ago. The Odum brothers' use of radiotracers was state-of-the-art when I was learning this stuff in school. How far we've gone! I'm struck by the advances in experimental methods. How do we know what we know? How about paleoecological studies? Computer modeling? Satellite remote sensing? When I learned this stuff 40+ years ago, all we learned about were patterns. Now the emphasis is on processes.

Ecosystems is a huge topic, far too big a subject to cover adequately in a 52,000 character essay, or one even double the current size. There are two basic approaches to attempting to cover such a huge subject in an article that can be read in 15–25 minutes. (1) Provide idiosyncratic coverage in significant detail of just the most important topics, knowing that you're going to miss a lot that people would want to learn. (2) Write the article mostly as a directed set of links. This is the "If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium" approach to writing a Wikipedia article.

Your article clearly adopts the second approach.

Comparing the subjects covered in your article with Chapin et al. (2011), Smith and Smith (2012), and a couple of other texts that I got from the university library, I see that you unavoidably missed a lot of important stuff. I say "unavoidably" because that's just how big this subject is, even taking the approach that you've adopted.

It would be unfair of me to ask you to fix everything, since that would entail writing at least a 200,000 character article. But I can ask you to fix a couple of topics for the GA.

History and development Treatment in this section is very inadequate. You have no dates, and describe nothing after the mid to late 60's. Modern understanding and methods of research have changed ENORMOUSLY in the last several decades since I studied this stuff in school.

Ecosystem processes Late in his life, Jenny recognized human activity as a sixth state factor, but you only mention human activity in the last two sentences? Human-induced ecosystem change is a huge factor in ecosystem processes.

Right now the article stands as about 52,000 characters. To fix these two issues, the article should grow to be maybe, say, around 60,000 characters? +++++++++ Opinions about this by anyone? Anyone able to address those comments? EMsmile (talk) 01:57, 29 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Currently the article's length is 24 kB (3712 words) "readable prose size", so no problem about it being too long. EMsmile (talk) 04:44, 29 March 2021 (UTC)

Content expert review (July 2021)
I am currently involved in a 2-year project where we contact content experts and ask them to review selected articles (more information here). When reaching out to people I am in particular looking for textbook authors who might enjoy teaching others and parting with their knowledge. For this article we contacted Terry Chapin whose textbooks are cited a lot in this article. He sent us comments by e-mail which my colleague User:ASRASR has now already incorporated in the Wikipedia article with a number of edits in early July: In general, the Wikipedia article on ecosystems is excellent. I have only a few minor comments and suggestions: 1. Section on processes, paragraph 3, first two sentences. “Potential biota are the biota that are present within the region. I suggest combining these two sentences to read “….potential biota, the organisms that are present in a region and could potentially occupy a particular site.” 2. Energy flow, first sentence. Energy can also be released from an ecosystem through disturbances such as wildfire or transferred to other ecosystems (e.g., from a forest to a stream to a lake) by erosion. The role of disturbance should also be mentioned in the first paragraph under “Decomposition” 3. Section on decomposition, paragraph 4. The sentence about soil moisture is confusing, because either high or low posture can reduce decomposition, as described nicely in the last paragraph in this section. I would change the sentence to read: “Temperature also affects soil moisture, which affects decomposition as described in the next paragraph.” 4. Section on nutrient cycling: last sentence of the first paragraph: It would be more accurate to say that most terrestrial ecosystems are nitrogen-limited in the short term, with availability of phosphorus also being important over longer time scales, as described in the last paragraph in this section. Peter Vitousek’s work on P limitation of ecosystems is the best description of these issues. You might add a paragraph in this section to talk about the role of mycorrhizal fungi that are symbiotic with plants. These fungi use carbohydrates supplied by plant roots and in return transfer organic nitrogen compounds to plants. This pathway of organic nitrogen transfer from dead organic matter to plants is missing from your diagram. 5. The section on function and biodiversity is generally quite unclear (in contrast to the preceding sections, which are very clear). Although individual phrases are generally scientifically accurate, most of the sentences are unclear and there is poor connectivity among sentences. The greatest problem in this section is the lack of coherence rather than incorrect facts. 6. The section on dynamics is excellent, except for the first paragraph. At the end of the first sentence, I’d suggest changing the wording to “…recovering from past disturbances.” The rest of this paragraph (equilibrium state, resilience, and resistance) describes the dynamics of complex systems (including ecosystems) in theoretical terms. This treatment here is in general too brief to be easily understood or to be easily related to other sections. The concepts are also described according to concepts as they were defined about 50 years ago and have evolved considerably in recent decades. I’d be inclined to move the first sentence of this paragraph to the beginning of the third paragraph and delete the rest of the first paragraph. Alternatively, consult some of the more recent treatments of resilience, such as Walker and Salt’s “Resilience Thinking”. We also talk about resilience in our textbook (Principles of Terrestrial Ecosystem Ecology). 7. In the section about Ecosystem ecology, I’d be inclined to delete the second paragraph that describes different conflicting definitions of ecosystems. It would take more text than you have space for to explain constructively the reasons behind the controversies regarding these definitions. I didn’t feel that this paragraph provides much insight about ecosystem ecology in a way that would be useful to readers of Wikipedia. I’d suggest moving the last paragraph of this section so that it follows the first paragraph. 8. Ecosystem goods and services. I’m not sure it is useful to separate “ecosystem goods” from "ecosystem services". IPBES defines ecosystem services as the benefits that people receive from nature—and these would include what the first paragraph in this section defines as ecosystem goods (as distinct from services). This ecosystem services concept is generally consistent across many indigenous and western knowledge systems. I’d suggest going to the recent syntheses by IPBES for an up-to-date conceptual framework. One way these have been categorized is “provisioning services” (what this paragraph defines as ecosystem goods—food, water, medicines, etc), regulating services (e.g., regulation of climate, water, disturbance and pollution) and “cultural services” which includes sense of place, ecotourism, beauty, etc.. I’d suggest doing some more reading about recent work on ecosystem services before revising this section. I’m not sufficiently up to date on the recent work to provide specific advice. 9. The sections on ecosystem management and ecosystem degradation are brief but appropriate. There is lots more that could be said (as with every topic in Wikipedia). I appreciate the cross references to other wikipedia topics. EMsmile (talk) 13:05, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Further work

 * I am also adding here further questions/feedback/thoughts by User:ASRASR (from an e-mail) which still need to be addressed in further work:


 * 1) You wrote: The role of disturbance should also be mentioned in the first paragraph under “Decomposition”. What sorts of disturbances did you have in mind regarding decomposition? I can think of drought, fire or flooding.
 * 2) Re P limitation, I added a reference Vitousek, P.; Porder, S. (2010). "Terrestrial phosphorus limitation: mechanisms, implications, and nitrogen–phosphorus interactions". Ecological Applications. 20(1): 5–15.
 * 3) I added increased P availability to the suggested para on N availability re mycorrhizal fungi (plus two references)
 * 4) You wrote: “The section on function and biodiversity is generally quite unclear (in contrast to the preceding sections, which are very clear). Although individual phrases are generally scientifically accurate, most of the sentences are unclear and there is poor connectivity among sentences. The greatest problem in this section is the lack of coherence rather than incorrect facts.” I didn’t have any great difficulty understanding this section. It could be improved further by adding the terms eurytopic and stenotopic – not sure if these are used much these days – my training began with Eugene Odum’s work.
 * 5) To improve the section on dynamics I added a sentence explaining resilience thinking and added a reference from SRC (which in turn also includes your recommended reference Walker and Salt) – “Resilience thinking also includes humanity as an integral part of the biosphere where we are dependent on ecosystem services for our survival and must build and maintain their natural capacities to withstand shocks and disturbances”. I also improved the last sentence in the 1st para so it makes more sense.
 * 6) Re section on ecosystem ecology – I carried out the operation you recommended – shifting paras and removal of the one describing controversies surrounding definitions of ecosystems
 * 7) Re ecosystem goods and services –I understand your point around not separating these  - but I think people need to understand that ecosystem processes (cf services) are the foundation to providing the goods. I added some explanations about the services which most people take for granted– “The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a major UN-sponsored effort to analyze the impact of human actions on ecosystems and human well-being, identified four major categories of ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services”. EMsmile (talk) 13:15, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Most of the terms under "See Also" still need to be mentioned in main text
I have today added some additional terms under "See also". This is just an interim step because I think ideally they should be introduced in one way or another in the main body, and can then be removed from "See also". This is work in progress. If anyone can help with sentences and references (either new or existing ones), please go ahead. EMsmile (talk) 13:18, 13 July 2021 (UTC)

Working on the references and comment about Chapin textbook
I have changed over from the short reference style to the "long reference" style because I think it's more appropriate and consistent for this kind of article. Furthermore, I am going to replace all the citations to the first edition textbook of Chapin et al. (2002) to the second edition (2011). I have the second edition here in front of me now, so I can adjust the page numbers accordingly. Overall, I feel that this article relies too much on one particular textbook: the book by Chapin is cited about 60 times. I find this a little bit problematic, also given that the text book is about "terrestrial ecosystems" whereas this article is about ecosystems in general. So the aspects that relate to aquatic ecosystems are likely to be under weighted in this article. This is something to work on later down the line. EMsmile (talk) 14:11, 16 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I am currently replacing all the old references to Terry Chapin's 2002 book (first edition) with his 2011 book (second edition). While doing so, I have found quite a few statements that had his 2002 book as a citation but that I cannot find in his 2011 book. I am currently consulting with Terry on these to determine if they need a different reference, no reference at all or if the statements are incorrect (some of them might have become too simplified over time, after various editors worked on this). Work in progress. EMsmile (talk) 04:01, 23 July 2021 (UTC)
 * OK, I have completed this process now and have added the correct references to the 2011 book (second edition). The first edition book is now no longer cited in this Wikipedia article. EMsmile (talk) 14:29, 16 August 2021 (UTC)

Citation
The following statement appears in the "Ecosystem restoration and sustainable development" section:

"To help inform decision-makers, many ecosystem services are being assigned economic values, often based on the cost of replacement with anthropogenic alternatives. The ongoing challenge of prescribing economic value to nature, for example through biodiversity banking, is prompting transdisciplinary shifts in how we recognize and manage the environment, social responsibility, business opportunities, and our future as a species."

I found the source of this quote; however, when I tried to insert the citation using the "cite journal" template, Wikipedia flagged it as an article that appeared in a predatory journal.

My question is, what would be the best way to proceed? Can the citation be inserted anyway, or does the statement need to be removed? If the latter, what could it be replaced with? Msoul13 (talk) 19:12, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi Msoul13, I doubt that that is the original source for such a quite generic statement. Perhaps those authors copied from Wikipedia rather? Or there is another source out there? Perhaps check in ecosystem services? EMsmile (talk) 23:52, 26 January 2022 (UTC)
 * Ah, I didn't even stop to consider that the authors of that article could have copied from Wikipedia!! I could start digging through the references in ecosystem services to find something suitable but if another editor wants to take up this task it's fine with me. Msoul13 (talk) 16:40, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Ecosystem Abstract
Humans have dramatically changed natural ecosystem around the world. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2401:4900:5D43:9810:0:0:824:AA20 (talk) 06:34, 11 October 2022 (UTC)