Talk:Periphyton

Salt or fresh water?
I think the article should say whether the term periphyton is used primarily for marine life, for freshwater life, or for both. 173.28.244.122 (talk) 03:47, 29 September 2012 (UTC)

Different from Aufwuchs?
Should these two pages be unified? I can't think of any difference between the two. If anyone has a good reason why not, the difference should be more clearly expressed within the pages. Octopod (talk) 07:14, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

From the Wiki pages themselves, it seems as though periphyton includes both the living microbes as well as the detritus (dead organism fragments as well as fecal matter) surrounding plants. Whereas Aufwuchs seems to be only living microbes surrounding plants. So there seems to be a slight difference, again only based upon Wikipedia pages. Anyone have further information on this?

Also! "Peri" means surrounding or in close proximity to, and "Phyton" refers to plants. It seems as though the Aufwuchs description on Wikipedia refers to things surrounding any kind of surface, usually rocks. So this is another difference to consider.

The "phyton" part refers to the constituents of the stuff, not the substance it encrusts. This article mentions only "submerged surfaces" in general, not plants in particular; same thing for Aufwuchs. I do notice that the Aufwuchs article specifically mentions animals as constituents of the encrusting community, whereas Periphyton does not, so perhaps that's a valid difference. However, I would point out that the EPA uses the two words interchangeably. (example: http://iaspub.epa.gov/tmdl_waters10/attains_impaired_waters.control?p_cause_name=PERIPHYTON%20%28AUFWUCHS%29%20INDICATOR%20BIOASSESSMENTS) Octopod (talk) 05:38, 12 September 2013 (UTC)


 * I support merger of the two articles. Both terms refer to biofilms found in natural bodies of water; although the populations may be very similar to those found in fountains, sewer systems, cooling towers, or once-though cooling water channels.  These communities can be quite varied depending upon such things as temperature, turbulence, nutrient availability, and substrate characteristics; and often include more fungus, protists, and prokaryotes than plants and animals.  Some biologists prefer distinctions like excluding the motile animals in aufwuchs from the sessile population of periphyton; but macroscopic appearance may be identical, and complete identification of all species is often beyond the ability of a single taxonomist, so either term may be appropriate until microscopic examination is complete.  In the absence of consensus about specific characteristics requiring distinction the present amount of information can easily be included in one article, and future differentiation could be accommodated as subsections of a single article. Thewellman (talk) 21:56, 19 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Looks like there is a consensus for a merge, differentiating within a combined page, but no discussion of direction. Perhaps to periphyton, as the slightly broader term. Klbrain (talk) 23:06, 3 January 2018 (UTC)

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