User:Ekarge/sandbox

 Article evaluation (iNaturalist)- 

The article is overall informative and relevant to the article topic. The article mentions that observations are incorporated into online databases without mentioning what they are. Unless there are too many databases to list in the article, it would be helpful and interesting to include what these databases are and provide links to them in the article (GBIF being one of them). There are appropriate sources listed for all of the fact laid out and all of the links to sources in the article support the claims in the article. The page appears to be very up-to-date as it was very recently edited a traces the history and progress of the application up until recently. The 'iNaturalist' Wikipedia page is of interest to the following projects: WikiProject Apps, Biology, Environment and Websites/computing. Not sure if this means it's part of those projects or just of potential interest.

 Article I'd like to improve: 

Myriophyllum spicatum

Specific improvements:
 * Expand on the Impact section. It needs some grammatical and sentence structure improvements and additionally there are a few important impacts that should be added. (i.e pathological, genetic, trophic cascade impacting ecosystem as a whole etc.)


 * Add a new section for "Management and Spread Prevention" after the "Control" section.

 Draft of Specific Improvements: 

Impacts:

In lakes or other aquatic areas where native aquatic plants are not well established, the Eurasian plant can quickly spread. It has been known to crowd out native plants and create dense mats that interfere with recreational activity. '''Dense growth of Eurasian milfoil can also have a negative impact on fisheries by creating microhabitats for juvenile fish and obstructing space for larger fish ultimately disrupting normal feeding patterns. Due to Eurasian milfoils inability to provide the same microhabitat for invertebrates as compared to native aquatic plant species, densely populated areas of Eurasian milfoil create an ecosystem with less food sources for the surrounding fish. Dense milfoil growth can also create hypoxic zones by blocking out sun penetration to native aquatic vegetation preventing them from photosynthesizing. Eurasian watermilfoil grows primarily from broken off stems, known as shoot fragments, which increases the rate at''' which the plant can spread and grow. In some areas, the Eurasian Watermilfoil is an Aquatic Nuisance Species. Eurasian watermilfoil is known to hybridize with the native northern watermilfoil (M. sibiricum) and the hybrid taxon has also become invasive in North America. This hybridization has been observed across the upper midwestern United States (Indiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Wisconsin) and in the Northwest (Idaho, Washington).

Engel, Sandy. “Eurasian Watermilfoil as a Fishery Management Tool.” Fisheries, vol. 20, no. 3, 9 Jan. 2011, pp. 20–27., doi:10.1577/1548-8446(1995)020<0020:EWAAFM>2.0.CO;2.

Management and Spread Prevention:

Trailering boats has proven to be a significant vector by which Eurasian Milfoil is able to spread and proliferate across otherwise disconnected bodies of water. Effective methods for mitigating this spread, are visual inspections with subsequent hand removal or pressure washing, upon boat removal.

Rothlisberger, John D, et al. “Aquatic Invasive Species Transport via Trailered Boats: What Is Being Moved, Who Is Moving It, and What Can Be Done.” Fisheries, vol. 35, no. 3, 9 Jan. 2011, pp. 121–132., doi:10.1577/1548-8446-35.3.121.